New Years Day. Looking at 2024 through the front of the Church doors.

I noted in our post  New Year's Resolutions for Other People, sort of that we weren't going to post resolutions, but we did have some comments.  That's true here as well.

New Years Day is the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, a Catholic holy day of obligation.  Like a lot of Catholics, I went to Mass last night.

Mural of the Virgin Mary in downtown Salt Lake City.

I didn't go last night as I intended to go whoop it up on the town.¹   I've never been big on celebrating "New Years" anyhow, although we did last night with family and sort of extended family, as we have a at this point another person in the second half of their twenties whose pretty much incorporated into the family, but not officially or by blood.  Anyhow, it was pretty low key and I was in bed before midnight.  I think last year I made it to midnight to observe the fireworks some neighbors set off.  This year I did not.  I'm amazed that the same people, who really like fireworks, set them off again, as we've had hurricane force winds for the past day or so.

Anyhow, the reason I'm posting this comment is due to a particularly troublesome year for American Christianity in 2024.

American Protestants don't like to believe it, but the United States is and has always been a Protestant Country.  It's so Protestant, that the Protestants can't recognize that, and even people who claim to have no religion at all are pretty Protestant.  Even a lot of Catholics are pretty Protestantized and I've known some fairly secular Jews who were fairly Protestant.

Protestantism is a pretty big tent, with there being all sorts of tables within it, and with some of the tables really not liking others.  For much of the country's history the Episcopal Church was the dominant Protestant Church, which made a lot of sense.  The Episcopal Church is, of course, part of the Anglican Communion and the English descent is dominant in American ancestry.  Supposedly this is 26% of the population now, but that figure is probably inaccurate by at least half simply because people whose ancestry stretches back away have simply forgotten it and is not celebrated the way other ancestral inheritance is.  I'm of overwhelming Irish ancestry but even I have a little English ancestry of the Anglo Norman variety, brough in through Ireland.

Anyhow, as in the 18th Century most residents of British North America were from Great Britain, most were members of the Church of England, outside of Canada, where of course they were French and Catholic.

The Episcopal Church has never been in the only Protestant Church in what is now the US, however.  Right from the beginning there were bodies of dissenters from the established church who came here to be able to practice their faith without being molested for it. That doesn't mean they were keen on others practicing their faiths, and they often didn't tolerate other Protestants at all.  But they were there, and that gave rise to a sort of rough and ready loosely organized Protestantism in some regions, particularly the American South.  These groups really prospered following the American Civil War as they hadn't gotten behind the war the way Southern Episcopalians had.  These groups really spread across the nation following the 1970s.  Looking back, its amazing to realize that growing up I knew exactly one Baptist kid (he's now a Lutheran) and the three big Protestant churches in this category didn't exist here.  Wyoming is the least religious state in the US, but at that time almost all the Protestants I knew were Lutheran or Episcopalian.  I knew a handful of Methodists and of course Mormons, but Baptists or Assemblies of God?  Nope.

So what's this have to do with 2024?

The Election of 2024 saw a really strong association of Evangelical Christianity, which is very much an American thing, and the vote.  It's distinctly different than anything that's occurred before.

Evangelical Christianity has been nationally significant in elections since at least 1950 or so, but it wasn't until 2024 that the "Christian vote" meant the Evangelical vote outside of the American South.  Because they are fractured, they are not the largest Christian body in the country.  Oddly enough, while 67% of the population self identifies as Christian, and something like 44% identify as Protestant, Catholics are the largest single denomination.

The back story to this however is that the Reformation, which started in 1517, is ending.  

The Reformation was able to start in the first place due to a large element of ignorance.  This can't be said of Luther, who wasn't ignorant, but who was opinionated and wrong.  Luther opened the door, however, to people like Calvin, Zwingli and Knox who were fundamentally ignorant in certain ways.

The spread of cheap printing and ultimately the Internet makes ignorance on some things much more difficult to retain.  For centuries bodies of Protestant Christians held to sola scriptura and a belief that they were like the first Christians, even though there's always been Christian texts dating back to shortly after Christ's crucifixion.²   Now, all of a sudden, anybody can read them.  This has in fact caused a pronounced migration of really serious sola scriptura Christians to the Apostolic Churches, as well as a migration by serious "mainline" Protestants.  Some bodies at this point, like very conservative Anglicans and Lutherans, are mostly Protestant out of pure obstinance. 

The ultimate irony of all of this is that the mainline Protestant churches have collapsed in many places.  Part of this is due to the massive increase in wealth in the western world which has hurt religion in general, but part is also because it gets to be tough to explain why you are a member of one of these churches if you can't explain a really solid reason to be, as opposed being in an Apostolic church.

At the same time, and not too surprisingly, similar forces have been operating in the Evangelical world in the US.  As already noted, quite a few serious Evangelicals are now serious Catholics or Orthodox.  Others, however, have retreated into a deep American Evangelicalism that is resistant to looking at the early Church, even though they are aware of it. This is rooted, in no small part, to the go it alone history of these bodies.

At the same time that this has occurred, the spread of the American Civil Religion has grown which sort of holds that everyone is going to Heaven as long as they aren't bad.  Serious Catholics and Orthodox can't accommodate themselves to that but Evangelicals have attempted to, while at the same time realizing it really doesn't make sense.  

Obergefell, as we noted, was the watershed moment.  At that point, Christians of all types were faced with realizing that the US had really strayed far from observing its Christian origins, or at least the Christian faith, with there being all sorts of different reactions to it.  In Catholic Churches there was the realization that we really hadn't become as American as we thought, and we weren't going to.  Trads sprang up partially in reaction with now every Church having its contingent of Mantilla Girls giving an obstinate cultural no.

In Evangelical circles it helped fuel a militant conservatism that expresses its most radical nature in the New Apostolic Reformation which believes that we're on the cusp of a new Apostolic age, which will be Protestant in nature, and more transformational than any prior Great Awakening.  They believe that the United States is charged with a Devine mission and some have concluded, as unlikely as it would seem from the outside, that Donald Trump is an improbable Cyrus the Great who will bring this about.

The support of Southern Episcopalians for the Southern cause in the Civil War damaged in the South to such an extent that the non mainline churches, like the Southern Baptist, came up as a major force after the war.  The Baptists and Protestant itinerant preachers had warned during the war that wickedness was going to bring ruin.  It seemed that their warnings were proven by the results of the war.  Episcopal linking to a wicked cause diminished their credibility.

Donald Trump is not Cyrus the Great.  Mike Johnson is not standing in the shoes of Moses.  This will all have a bad end.  Or it might.  As noted, the Reformation is dying and in some ways this is the last stand of it.  Those linking their Christianity to a man like Donald Trump are pinning their hopes, and their faith, on a weak reed. The question is what happens when it breaks and how much damage has been done, including to Christianity in general, in the meantime.

Moreover, the question also exists if you can claim to bear a Christian standard while not observing parts of the faith that are established but uncomfortable, let alone contrary to what is now so easy to determine not to be part of the early faith.  Can those who clearly don't live a Christian life really be the shield wall against decay?  

Footnotes:

1.  As with my observation on Christmas in The Law and Christmas, being a Catholic puts you in a strange position in regard to the secular world, or rather the larger American culture.  Lots of people start celebrating New Years pretty darned early on New Years Even, which means as an employer you start to get questions about whether we're closing at noon and the like, pretty early on.  And also, while in the popular imagination people hit the bars at night, quite a few people have celebrator drinks here and there by late morning in reality.  If your concern is getting to a vigil Mass soon after work, you aren't one of those people. And if you are one of the people hitting Mass in the morning, you aren't having a late night.

2.  Sola scriptura never made sense and is obviously incorrect in that the New Testament itself mentions traditions outside of the written text.  But the Bible, moreover, which is the scripture that "Bible Believing" Christian's look to is the version that was set out by the Catholic Church as the Canon of Scripture. Nowhere in the Bible does is there a Devine instruction as to what books would be included in the Bible.

Indeed, this position is further weakened in that Luther put some books he personally didn't like in an appendix, and later Protestants removed them. That wasn't Biblical.  Moreover, the Eastern Orthodox Bible contains the Prayer of Manaseh, I Esdras, II Esdras, III Maccabees, IV Maccabees, Odes, and Psalm 151 and the Orthodox Tewahedo biblical canon some pre Christian Jewish books the others do not. While Catholics can explain why the books they include in their canon and can explain the relationship to the other Bibles, Protestant "Bible Believing" Christians flat out cannot.  All of the texts in the Orthodox Bibles are genuine ancient texts without dispute.  Moreover, there are early Christian writings which are genuine that are wholly omitted from any Bible.  The Sola Scriptura position just accepts the King James version of the Bible on the basis that it must be the canon on a pure matter of faith, which is not relying on scripture alone.

Related thread:

Virgin Mary Mural in Salt Lake City

A Protestant Country. It's history, and what it means.

Churches of the West: The Bishop of Rome.

Churches of the West: The Bishop of Rome.: 

The Bishop of Rome.

By this time, most observant conservative Catholics are either so fatigued from Papal issuances that they either disregard them, or cringe when they come out. They seem to come out with a high degree of regularity.

And, while we don't technically have a new one, a "study document" issued by the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity has put out something that has the Pope's approval to be issued, that being something that looks at the role of the Papacy itself:

Now, it's a very large document, so I'm not going to attempt to put it all out here, and I haven't read all of it either.  So, we're going to turn to  The Pillar to find out what it holds.  The Pillar states:

What does it say? 

Helpfully, the text has a section summarizing the four sections (beginning on p106).

1) Regarding responses to Ut unum sint, the document says that the question of papal primacy is being discussed in “a new and positive ecumenical spirit.” 

“This new climate is indicative of the good relations established between Christian communions, and especially between their leaders,” it says. 

2) Concerning disputed theological questions, the text welcomes what it calls “a renewed reading” of the classic “Petrine texts,” which set out the Apostle Peter’s role in the Church.

“On the basis of contemporary exegesis and patristic research, new insights and mutual enrichment have been achieved, challenging some traditional confessional interpretations,” it notes. 

One particularly controversial issue, it says, is the Catholic conviction that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome was established de iure divino (by divine law), “while most other Christians understand it as being instituted merely de iure humano” (by human law). 

But the document says that new interpretations are helping to overcome “this traditional dichotomy, by considering primacy as both de iure divino and de iure humano, that is, being part of God’s will for the Church and mediated through human history.” 

Another enduring obstacle is the First Vatican Council. But the document says that here too there has been “promising progress,” thanks to ecumenical dialogues that seek “a ‘rereading’ or ‘re-reception’” of the Council’s decrees. 

This approach, it says, “emphasizes the importance of interpreting the dogmatic statements of Vatican I not in isolation, but in the light of their historical context, of their intention and of their reception — especially through the teaching of Vatican II.” 

Addressing this point in a June 13 Vatican News interview, Cardinal Koch said that since Vatican I’s “dogmatic definitions were profoundly conditioned by historical circumstances,” ecumenical partners were encouraging the Catholic Church to “seek new expressions and vocabulary faithful to the original intention, integrating them into an ecclesiology of communion and adapting them to the current cultural and ecumenical context.”  

“There is therefore talk of a ‘re-reception,’ or even ‘reformulation,’ of the teachings of Vatican I,” the Swiss cardinal explained. 

3) Summarizing the document’s third section, the text says that fresh approaches to disputed questions have “opened new perspectives for a ministry of unity in a reconciled Church.” 

Crucially, the document suggests there is a common understanding that although the first millennium of Christian history is “decisive,” it “should not be idealized nor simply re-created since the developments of the second millennium cannot be ignored and also because a primacy at the universal level should respond to contemporary challenges.”

From the ecumenical dialogues, it’s possible to deduce “principles for the exercise of primacy in the 21st century,” the text says. 

One is that there must be an interplay between primacy and synodality at every level of the Church. In other words, there is a need for “a synodal exercise of primacy.”

Synodality is notoriously difficult to define, but the document describes it at one point as “the renewed practice of the Synod of Bishops, including a broader consultation of the whole People of God.” 

4) Among the practical suggestions for a renewed exercise of the ministry of unity, the document highlights the possibility of “a Catholic ‘re-reception’, ‘re-interpretation’, ‘official interpretation’, ‘updated commentary’ or even ‘rewording’ of the teachings of Vatican I.” 

It also stresses appeals for “a clearer distinction between the different responsibilities of the Bishop of Rome, especially between his patriarchal ministry in the Church of the West and his primatial ministry of unity in the communion of Churches, both West and East.”  

“There is also a need to distinguish the patriarchal and primatial roles of the Bishop of Rome from his political function as head of state,” the text says, adding: “A greater accent on the exercise of the ministry of the pope in his own particular Church, the Diocese of Rome, would highlight the episcopal ministry he shares with his brother bishops, and renew the image of the papacy.” 

The new document appears months after Pope Francis restored the title “Patriarch of the West” among the list of papal titles in the Vatican’s annual yearbook, after it was dropped by his predecessor Benedict XVI. 

Commenting on that development at the June 13 Vatican press conference, Cardinal Koch said that neither Francis nor Benedict XVI offered detailed explanations for the change. 

“But I am convinced they did not want to do something against anyone, but both wanted to do something ecumenically respectful,” he commented. 

Another suggestion is for the Catholic Church to further develop its practice of synodality, particularly through “further reflection on the authority of national and regional Catholic bishops’ conferences, their relationship with the Synod of Bishops and with the Roman Curia.” 

Finally, the text mentions a request for regular meetings among Church leaders at a worldwide level, in a spirit of “conciliar fellowship.”

What does that mean?

Well, frankly, I don't grasp it.

Without having read it, I sort of vaguely grasp that the Pope, who recently revived using the title Patriarch of the West, is sort of modeling this view of the Papacy on the Churches of the East, sort of.  In the East, each Church is autocephalous, with the Patriarch of Constantinople holding a "first among equals" position.  I don't think the Pope intends to fully go in that direction, but vaguely suggest that the synodal model of the East should apply more in the West, and that as Patriarch of the West, perhaps the entire Apostolic Church could be reunited, and perhaps even sort of vaguely include the "mainline" Protestant Churches, by which we'd mean the Lutheran and Anglican Churches.

It sort of interestingly brings up the Zoghby Initiative of the 1970s, in which Melkite Greek Catholic Church bishop Elias Zoghby sought to allow for inter-communion between the Melkites and the Antiochian Orthodox Church after a short period of dialogue.  His position was, basically, that this reunion could occur with a two point profession of faith, those being a statement of belief in the teaching gof the Eastern Orthodox churches and being in communion with the Bishop of Rome as the first among the bishops "according to the limits recognized by the Holy Fathers of the East during the first millennium, before the separation."

Thing was, there really were no limits.  In the first thousand years before the separation it's pretty clear that the Pope was head of the Church.  Indeed, from the earliest days that was recognized.

Bishop Zoghby's initiative went nowhere and he's since passed on, but this sort of interestingly recalls it.  His effort received criticism from figures within Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic Church, although a few Eastern Catholics admired it.  Here, I'd predict that conservative Catholics are not going to be too impressed.

Additionally, a recent problem barely noticed in the West is that the recent focus of Pope Francis on blessings for people in irregular unions, which is widely interpreted to mean homosexuals, has not only upset conservative Catholics, but Eastern Churches in some cases have backed away from the Catholic Church.  One Eastern Bishop who was getting quite close to Rome came out and stated that Fiducia Supplicans basically prevented any chance of reunion with his church.

This gets back to some things we've noted here before.  One is that this Papacy seems very focused on Europe, although the fact that this also looks towards the East cuts against that statement a bit.  Having said that, a good deal of the early focus of this Papacy was on European conditions, which have continued to be a problem as the German Church is outright ignoring Pope Francis to a large degree.  Loosening the role of the Papacy may stand to make those conditions worse, and probably won't bring the mainstream of the Lutherans and Anglicans in.  Which gets to the next point.  The Reformation is dying.

Seemingly hardly noticed is that the real story in Christianity, to a large degree, is the rapid decline in the old Reformation Protestant churches.  People like to note "well Catholic numbers are declining too", but frankly real statistical data shows that while there may be a decline, it's slight.  Indeed, what appears to be occurring in the Western World is that conversions to Catholicism offset departures. That's not growth, but what that sort of shows is the decline in cultural affiliation with a certain religion and, at least in the US, the end of the byproduct of the Kennedy Era Americanization of the Church.  Indeed, at the same time this is going on, the growth in Catholic conservatism and traditionalism in younger generations has grown too big to ignore.¹ At the same time, Eastern Catholic Churches are gaining members from outside their ethnic communities, and the Easter Orthodox are gaining adherents from conservative Protestants who are leaving their liberalizing denominations.

This is a study document, so it's not a proclamation.  Twenty years ago or maybe even ten, I would have thought this a really good idea.  My instinct now is that its time has passed.  While conservative Catholics hold their breaths about the upcoming next session of the Synod on Synodality, there's sort of a general sense of marking time here as well, and indeed, an uncomfortable one.  The current Papacy has is very near its end, everyone knows this, but it puts out a lot of material that's of a highly substantive, and often controversial, nature.  Much of this is going to have to be dealt with after this Papcy concludes. Both the volume and speed at which things are occurring may reflect this, as that knowledge operates against the clock, but it might also be a reason to slow down at the Vatican level, or even put a bit of a time-out on things.

Footnotes:

1.  Indeed, I was at Confession recently on an average Saturday and noted that as I was there a  young woman with her two children were waiting in front of me, with both children saying Rosaries and the mother wearing a chapel veil. Her mother came in and also was wearing one, and a stunning young woman of maybe 20 came in also wearing one.  Every woman, and most of them were young, were attired in that fashion.

It's a minor example, but very notable.  This is becoming common.

Wednesday, May 14, 1924. Pondering pacifism, charges of communism and executions.

The Methodist general conference committee meeting in Springfield, Massachusetts voted 76 to 37 to recommend to the conference that the church never again participate in the support of warfare of any kind.

The meeting was contentious in general, with charges of communism being levied against church leaders.

Former Constitutionalist general and supporter of the recent rebellion, Gen. Fortunato Maycottee was executed by firing squad at age 32.

A multiracial Legislative Council of Kenya met for the first time.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, May 13, 1924. Conventions wrap up.

1920s, 1924, 1924 Election, John B. Kendrick, Wyoming

Christian Nationalism, National Conservatism and Southern Populism. Eh?

Nearly the Southern Populist anthem, Sweet Home Alabama.

I should start off with a massive series of disclaimers here, particularly as Southern Populism and Southern Agrarianism are not the same thing, although they are related.  The terms are easy to confuse.

But confusion is at the core of what we're trying to explore here.

Additionally, Southerners tend to be proud of the South in a way that not all regions of the country are proud of their regions.  Native Westerners tend to be very nativist and provincial, and proud of the West, or more often of their particular states.  Southerners tend to be proud of the entire South, with Texas and Oklahoma, at least by my observation, particularly proud of their states.  Louisiana, which has its own unique culture, does as well.  While I put Lynrd Skynrd up above, for a reason, I'd note that perhaps, in this regard, I should have posted the lyrics by Ally Venable to the song she co performed with Buddy Guy, Texas Louisiana:

Texas

Louisiana whew

That's where we come from

Texas

Yeah Louisiana

Always on the run

Well I'm just starting out

I ain't never done

Hey there neighbor

Get on in this house

Like sugarcane and cactus

We're both from the south

Texas

Louisiana

That's where we come from

Texas

Yeah Louisiana

We're both old and young

I'm the farmers daughter

I'm a poor man's son

Love Stevie ray

Little Walter too

Turn it up Buddy

I wanna jam with you

Texas

Louisiana too

That's where we come from

Texas

Whew Louisiana too

Together having fun

Teacher used to tell me

Two heads is better than one

So, I'm not trying to pick on the South, or Southerners.

Recently we've written two posts, both of which related to Susan Stubson's op ed in the New York Times decrying what she thinks is the impact of Christian Nationalism on the Wyoming GOP.  Those articles were:

Blog Mirror: Christian nationalism and how it’s hurting Wyoming

The End of the Reformation I. Christian Nationalism becomes a local debate. . .

Here's the thing, however.  She's confused.

What Stubson's actually writing about, but doesn't know it, is the impact of Southern Populism on Wyoming, including Southern Cultural Christianity, not Christian Nationalism.  Christian Nationalism hasn't really made an appearance in Wyoming and frankly, while it's been floating around in nascent form in the US since Dreher wrote The Benedict Option, it hasn't gathered a strong street level attraction anywhere.  It's more of an intellectual movement.

Given that the overall terms here are poorly defined, particularly in regard to Christian Nationalism, it's easy to see why the authors of these articles are confused.  It's all the easier to see why Stubson would be confused, as she's a Reagan Republican and a fallen away Catholic who fell into Evangelical Protestantism.  There's a straight line between Ronald Reagan and Southern Populism's spread into the GOP at large, and therefore, even though I'm sure he would be personally horrified, there's a straight line between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.  One, basically, begat the other.

Christian Nationalism, like it or hate it, is an intellectual movement, and is one in the same with National Conservatism.  Its founder in American politics, if not its overall founder, is Patrick Deneen and its backers can be found in the pages of R. R. Reno's First Things.  Quite frankly, that puts it in the intellectual heavyweight category.  It's issued a manifesto, and the signers of it include some well known conservative thinkers.  Deneen has issued at least two well regarded books on the topic. Its central thesis is that liberalism has failed, in part due to its success, and is now consuming itself, and the entire culture of the West with it, by a frenzied orgy of libertine, mostly sexually focused, individualism.  What needs to be done, it holds, is the preservation of democracy, but Illiberal Democracy, with the boundary lines of the culture externally enforced.  It sets its manifesto out as follows:

1. National Independence. We wish to see a world of independent nations. Each nation capable of self-government should chart its own course in accordance with its own particular constitutional, linguistic, and religious inheritance. Each has a right to maintain its own borders and conduct policies that will benefit its own people. We endorse a policy of rearmament by independent self-governing nations and of defensive alliances whose purpose is to deter imperialist aggression. 

2. Rejection of Imperialism and Globalism. We support a system of free cooperation and competition among nation-states, working together through trade treaties, defensive alliances, and other common projects that respect the independence of their members. But we oppose transferring the authority of elected governments to transnational or supranational bodies—a trend that pretends to high moral legitimacy even as it weakens representative government, sows public alienation and distrust, and strengthens the influence of autocratic regimes. Accordingly, we reject imperialism in its various contemporary forms: We condemn the imperialism of China, Russia, and other authoritarian powers. But we also oppose the liberal imperialism of the last generation, which sought to gain power, influence, and wealth by dominating other nations and trying to remake them in its own image. 

3. National Government. The independent nation-state is instituted to establish a more perfect union among the diverse communities, parties, and regions of a given nation, to provide for their common defense and justice among them, and to secure the general welfare and the blessings of liberty for this time and for future generations. We believe in a strong but limited state, subject to constitutional restraints and a division of powers. We recommend a drastic reduction in the scope of the administrative state and the policy-making judiciary that displace legislatures representing the full range of a nation’s interests and values. We recommend the federalist principle, which prescribes a delegation of power to the respective states or subdivisions of the nation so as to allow greater variation, experimentation, and freedom. However, in those states or subdivisions in which law and justice have been manifestly corrupted, or in which lawlessness, immorality, and dissolution reign, national government must intervene energetically to restore order.

4. God and Public Religion. No nation can long endure without humility and gratitude before God and fear of his judgment that are found in authentic religious tradition. For millennia, the Bible has been our surest guide, nourishing a fitting orientation toward God, to the political traditions of the nation, to public morals, to the defense of the weak, and to the recognition of things rightly regarded as sacred. The Bible should be read as the first among the sources of a shared Western civilization in schools and universities, and as the rightful inheritance of believers and non-believers alike. Where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision, which should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private. At the same time, Jews and other religious minorities are to be protected in the observance of their own traditions, in the free governance of their communal institutions, and in all matters pertaining to the rearing and education of their children. Adult individuals should be protected from religious or ideological coercion in their private lives and in their homes. 

5. The Rule of Law. We believe in the rule of law. By this we mean that citizens and foreigners alike, and both the government and the people, must accept and abide by the laws of the nation. In America, this means accepting and living in accordance with the Constitution of 1787, the amendments to it, duly enacted statutory law, and the great common law inheritance. All agree that the repair and improvement of national legal traditions and institutions is at times necessary. But necessary change must take place through the law. This is how we preserve our national traditions and our nation itself. Rioting, looting, and other unacceptable public disorder should be swiftly put to an end. 

6. Free Enterprise. We believe that an economy based on private property and free enterprise is best suited to promoting the prosperity of the nation and accords with traditions of individual liberty that are central to the Anglo-American political tradition. We reject the socialist principle, which supposes that the economic activity of the nation can be conducted in accordance with a rational plan dictated by the state. But the free market cannot be absolute. Economic policy must serve the general welfare of the nation. Today, globalized markets allow hostile foreign powers to despoil America and other countries of their manufacturing capacity, weakening them economically and dividing them internally. At the same time, trans-national corporations showing little loyalty to any nation damage public life by censoring political speech, flooding the country with dangerous and addictive substances and pornography, and promoting obsessive, destructive personal habits. A prudent national economic policy should promote free enterprise, but it must also mitigate threats to the national interest, aggressively pursue economic independence from hostile powers, nurture industries crucial for national defense, and restore and upgrade manufacturing capabilities critical to the public welfare. Crony capitalism, the selective promotion of corporate profit-taking by organs of state power, should be energetically exposed and opposed. 

7. Public Research. At a time when China is rapidly overtaking America and the Western nations in fields crucial for security and defense, a Cold War-type program modeled on DARPA, the “moon-shot,” and SDI is needed to focus large-scale public resources on scientific and technological research with military applications, on restoring and upgrading national manufacturing capacity, and on education in the physical sciences and engineering. On the other hand, we recognize that most universities are at this point partisan and globalist in orientation and vehemently opposed to nationalist and conservative ideas. Such institutions do not deserve taxpayer support unless they rededicate themselves to the national interest. Education policy should serve manifest national needs. 

8. Family and Children. We believe the traditional family is the source of society’s virtues and deserves greater support from public policy. The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization. The disintegration of the family, including a marked decline in marriage and childbirth, gravely threatens the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations. Among the causes are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life. Economic and cultural conditions that foster stable family and congregational life and child-raising are priorities of the highest order. 

9. Immigration. Immigration has made immense contributions to the strength and prosperity of Western nations. But today’s penchant for uncontrolled and unassimilated immigration has become a source of weakness and instability, not strength and dynamism, threatening internal dissension and ultimately dissolution of the political community. We note that Western nations have benefited from both liberal and restrictive immigration policies at various times. We call for much more restrictive policies until these countries summon the wit to establish more balanced, productive, and assimilationist policies. Restrictive policies may sometimes include a moratorium on immigration. 

10. Race. We believe that all men are created in the image of God and that public policy should reflect that fact. No person’s worth or loyalties can be judged by the shape of his features, the color of his skin, or the results of a lab test. The history of racialist ideology and oppression and its ongoing consequences require us to emphasize this truth. We condemn the use of state and private institutions to discriminate and divide us against one another on the basis of race. The cultural sympathies encouraged by a decent nationalism offer a sound basis for conciliation and unity among diverse communities. The nationalism we espouse respects, and indeed combines, the unique needs of particular minority communities and the common good of the nation as a whole.

That's not what the leaders of the Wyoming GOP hold dear to their hearts, although they'd likely say they're for all of that.

Emperor Constantine and the bishops of the First Council of Nicaea (325) holding the Niceean Creed, something that has more to do with Christian Nationalism than anything coming out of the populst wing of the GOP.

And, again, like it or not, Christian Nationalism looks more to Antioch of the 1st Century, and then to Rome, and Constantinople.  Its founders, the way it views itself, would be, it imagines, are found there, not in Philadelphia in 1776, or in Richmond from 1860 to 1865.

They wouldn't be getting down to Sweet Home Alabama or Texas Louisiana.

Southern Populism, however, grows out of the same soil that Southern Agrarianism did, coming up from part of the same culture.  A person might be tempted, therefore, to look to I'll Take My Stand as its manifesto, and they'd be partially correct in doing so, but not fully so.  The authors of that agrarian manifesto were correct in noting that the South had an Agrarian culture, and a Christian one.  Many American agrarians have thought, with some justification, that one must be the other, although oddly it's rarely noted that one of the most successful North American agrarian cultures was just that, but not Protestant.  The Quebec culture prior to the Quiet Revolution was agrarian, and Catholic.  For that matter, the Red River Rebellion was an uprising of Catholic agrarian Métis against the intrusion of Protestant English culture in the form of the English cultured Canadian government.  

Councillors and officers of the Provisional Government of the Métis Nation, circa 1869. Front row, L-R: Robert O'Lone, Paul Proulx. Centre row, L-R: Pierre Poitras, John Bruce, Louis Riel, John O'Donoghue, François Dauphinais. Back row, L-R: Bonnet Tromage, Pierre de Lorme, Thomas Bunn, Xavier Page, Baptiste Beauchemin, Baptiste Tournond, 

Therefore, the point raised by the Southern Agrarians isn't incorrect, but misunderstood, perhaps even by themselves.

Christianity in the American South was heavily impacted by the Civil War.  Going into the war, the Episcopal Church was the central Christian denomination of the South, even contributing a Bishop to the ranks of Confederate generals.  Behind it was the Presbyterian Church, the church of displaced Scots from Ireland.  Always present in the South, however, and to a smaller degree in the North, were numerous informal Christian pastors and pastors and congregations descendant from earlier dissenters. 

Confederate Lieutenant-General Leonidas Polk, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana and founder of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America.  Popular with his troops, he was such a bad general that one historian has noted that the shot that killed him in battle was one of the worst shots of the Civil War, as it removed him from leadership.

 

The war brought these individuals to the forefront in Southern religion.  Episcopalianism was the Church that was associated with the Southern elite and hence failure.  Just as some poorly catechized Catholics have abandoned their church in the wake of priest scandals, average Southerners did so to a large degree following the war.

The rise of certain branches of American Protestantism had occurred before the war, for that matter, which came in the midst of the Great Awakening period.  That period was particularly fertile in the US for the advancement of Protestant faiths that were not rooted in a formal structure, although they created new ones or leaned on informal preexisting ones.  This was not, by any means, confined to the South, but the war did cause a post-war condition in the South in which the Episcopal church wanted and other strains of Protestantism advanced. The Episcopal Church was simply too associated with the disaster of the Civil War and those who had led the South into it.

The war also had the impact of spreading white Southerners across the county.  The Great Migration of black Southerners would wait until the early 20th Century, for the most part, but a large-scale migration of white Southerners started soon after the war, or in reality even during it.  It wasn't massive enough to create the same sort of demographic impacts the Great Migration would, but it did result in the spread of Southerners and Southerners attached to informal strains of Protestantism across the country.  It did not, however, result in a big cultural change.  The religious shift did, however, have a significant cultural impact in the South.

Episcopalianism became northern based following the war and when the Civil Rights Era arrived, it backed it.  Black churches also, and obviously, backed it. But informal cultural Southern Christianity, which had advanced with its very loose structure, in the South after the war opposed it, and often in an unstructured cultural way.   Without the structure of Episcopalianism, or of Presbyterianism, and having adopted certain doctrines that encouraged an anti-Biblical presumption of easy salvation, a certain "do it your own" or individualistic approach, while still very conservative, became the norm such that even people which very loose religious affiliation could feel themselves part of the overall fold and could mix their cultural views with their religious ones easily.

Oil booms of the 50s/60s, 70s, and the very late 20tth Century and early 21st Century had the impact of really bringing up a lot of workers from Texas and Oklahoma during that period, and that in turn really altered the Protestant religious landscape of the oil producing regions of the West at the exact same time that the collapse of the Reformation saw the Mainline Protestant churches in the US became to rapidly contract. The Mainline Protestant Churches had dominated Protestantism outside the South, and in the Rocky Mountain West.  IN the Rocky Mountain West, however, lack of religious attachment was remarkably strong, which impacted how this worked.  Wyoming was, and indeed remains, the least religious state in the U.S., which in turn meant that religion had a very muted impact on politics.  Those who were faithful members of churches were remarkably unwilling to mix faith and politics, and even strongly religious politicians were almost never mention their religious affiliation.  A scene like we recently had, with UW student republicans giving an invocation over a right wing Secretary of State, would simply not have occurred.  Indeed, an effort by a very conservative LDS legislator in the 1980s to regulate pornography was met without right derision.

Whether this is good or bad is, perhaps, dependent upon your religious views, but it was an aspect of life in Wyoming in particular, and in much of the Rocky Mountain West.  It is not as if there were not many churchgoers, there were, but openly incorporating religious beliefs into political positions just didn't occur.

That something was changing should have been obvious, perhaps, by the growth of local mega churches, even in this region.  Prior to the 1990s, loosely defined Protestants tended to gravitate towards an established church, often a Baptist Church, which had loose affiliations, or oddly enough, if they attended church once or twice a year, a Catholic Church.  But with mega churches that muted their denominational affiliation or which claimed none (something that is in fact never really true), they started to gravitate in that direction.  This became obvious first with funerals, oddly enough, which were often held in one of these churches for people who had no real religious affiliation other than a loose or even informal Christianity.  It became a little easy to tell who these people were simply by reading in their obituaries where the funerals would be. 

At the same time, however, this new strain, or rather newly imported strain, of Christianity did very much take root.  People who would have previously gone to a Baptist or Presbyterian Church started attending these, with the latter two suffering as a result.  A partial example of this is here:

City Park Church, formerly First Presbyterian Church, Casper Wyoming

This is City Park Church, and was formerly, as noted below in the original entry, the First Presbyterian Church.

This Presbyterian Church is located one block away from St. Mark's Episcopal Church and St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, all of which are separated from each other by City Park. 

The corner stone of the church gives the dates 1913 1926. I'm not sure why there are two dates, but the church must have been completed in 1926.

This century old church became the home of the former First Baptist Church congregation on February 28, 2020, and as noted in a thread we'll link in below, had been experiencing a lot of changes prior to that.

The original entry here was one of the very first on this blog and dated at least back as far as January 25, 2011.  While the architecture hasn't changed at all, with the recent change our original entry became misleading to an extent.

That this had crossed over into politics became obvious with the candidacy of Foster Freiss. Extremely wealthy, and with little connection to Wyoming other than maintaining a home in Jackson, the Wisconsin born Freiss had connections with Texas, and campaigned in a style that recalled the South of the 1970s.  Daisy Duke, t-shirt clad, young women appeared, freezing, in campaign rallies for the first time in the state's history, and so far the only time.  A car that appeared in town, with Colorado license plates declaring "Christians for Freiss" made it obvious what was occurring.

And that's where the state's GOP went.

Not that it's done so cleanly.  A person who knows the state's demographics would note that in certain regions of the state, another religion has a strong representation in the GOP.  Some newly imported members of "Freedom Caucus" are likely members of Mainline or Apostolic Churches, with one probably being Catholic.  Chuck Gray is Catholic.  To an extent, this shows how lines blur along religious and political lines, and it's always difficult to draw bright lines.  To another extent, however, it might also show had American Catholicism has become Protestantized at the pew level with some people.¹

This isn't Christian Nationalism.

Christian Nationalism looks very much outwards, rather than inward, in its view, and if the Christianity of Wyoming's GOP, and that of the nation writ large right now, looks towards South Carolina in 1865 without realizing it, Christian Nationalism looks toward Rome, Constantinople, Canterbury, and to some extent, Moscow via Kyiv in 988.

Large revival meeting, 1909, in a National Guard Armory

Put another way, the Christianity of the current GOP really looks towards a rural Southern Christian revival meeting, or at least a revival meeting, of the 1950s, while Christian Nationalism looks either to the WASP past prior to 1950, or to an Apostolic Christian ghetto of the same period.

They aren't the same at all.

Which is why Stubson's commentary was off.

The intellectual heavyweights of the Christian Nationalist movement show that.  Rod Dreher was perhaps there early, and he's a devout Eastern Orthodox Christian, having converted from Catholicism, which he had converted to from Protestantism.  Patrick Dineen is a Latin Rite Catholic.  R. R. Reno is a  Catholic convert from Episcopalianism.  You can find non-Apostolic Christians in the movement, but you have to hunt for them.

Moreover, for nationalist, they're surprisingly international.  Dreher has self exiled himself to Hungary, which many in his camp look towards as a model.²   Poland is held up as an example as well.  Christian Nationalist heralded the election of Giorgia Meloni, who claims to defend "God, fatherland, and family and defines herself as “a woman, a mother, an Italian and Christian”.  Meloni, of course, comes from a Catholic country, Italy, and while her actual adherence to the Faith would seem to be questionable, whatever brand of Christian she is, she's likely culturally Catholic.

What the essential essence of Christian Nationalism holds is that the West, by which it means countries in Europe, made up of European descended people, or countries which have a European culture by whatever means, are essentially (Apostolic) Christian in culture, above everything else. Next to that, each nation, they'd hold, has its own individual culture.  After that, but only after all of that is accepted, they're for democracy.

Hence, they are National Conservatives, or Illiberal Democrats.  Their attachment to democracy comes after 1) an attachment to (Apostolic) Christianity and 2) national culture (formed by an attachment to Christianity), but it is there.

That's distinctly different from modern Populism, which doesn't seem to have a strong real attachment to democracy right now, or to the extent that it does, it's exclusionary.³   Democracy is for the right people, who are of the right culture, and who espouse the American Civil Religion.

Put in terms stated by Dinneen:

As Montesquieu pointed out long ago, democracy is the most demanding regime, given its demands for civic virtue. The cultivation of virtue requires the thick presence of virtue-forming and virtue-supporting institutions, but these are precisely the institutions and practices that liberalism aims to hollow and eviscerate in the name of individual liberty.

Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed.  

National Conservatives would seek the thick preservation of virtue forming and virtue supporting institutions.  Liberals would rip them down.  Populists, right now, would simply dictate their views, expecting them to be accepted.  As Dinneen notes, and correctly, about Liberalism, and by extension the opposite views of National Conservatives/Christian Nationalists:

[W]hat is bemoaned by the right is due not to the left but to the consequences of its own deepest commitments, especially to liberal economics. And it seeks to show that what is bemoaned by the left is due not to the right but to the consequences of its own deepest commitments, especially to the dissolution of social norms, particularly those regarding sexual behavior and identity. The “wedding” between global corporations and this sexual agenda is one of the most revealing yet widely ignored manifestations of this deeper synergy.

Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed

That's also why, quite frankly, these two movements, while they are overlapping right now, are in actuality deeply antithetical to each other, and it's also why, ironically, the very thing that Stubson misidentifies and fears grew out of and is part of the thing that she claims to wish to preserve.

Because National Conservatism/Christian Nationalism is, at the end of the day, rooted in the same concern that caused Dreher to write The Benedict Option, it looks at something much larger than the nation.  The nation that National Conservatism/Christian Nationalism seeks to preserve, overall, is Christendom, with various nations just subparts of that.  Christian Nationalism, or once again National Conservatism, look at nations the same way that Carolingians did.  Yes, there are countries, and yes they do matter, but not as much as something else does.  Southern Populist, however, are America Firsters.

Autograph of Charles the Great.

Put another way, Christian Nationalist feel that the Council of Nicea is of paramount importance, but would reject the concept that the U.S. Constitution is some sort of religious document.  They aren't "Constitutional Conservatives", confident that this somehow equates with religiosity, but rather Council Conservatives confident of their religious grounding.

If that's understood, there really aren't any Christian Nationalist in Wyoming politics, openly.  There may be, without their realizing it, but they aren't the same group as the Freedom Caucus.  The Wyoming Freedom Caucus is made up of populist strongly influenced by Southern Populism, which is where their religiosity comes from.  It's why they can speak in religious terms with such confidence and also support somebody who is a serial polygamist and have a leader who has been accused of serious moral misconduct at some point in the past.  The movement can, at its core, believe that its members were once saved and therefore always saved, and battle with certainty, whereas Christian Nationalist worry about the entire West losing its soul.

All of this undoubtedly sounds like an endorsement of Christian Nationalism, but it isn't.  It is a condemnation of current American populism.  And we are expressing some sympathy with Christian Nationalism in its recognition of what Patrick Dineen has written in regard to liberalism and how it is destroying Western culture, which it is.  Liberalism has succeeded so well, it's now consuming itself by consuming reality.  

Its warning would be simple, recalling its oldest lessons: at the end of the path of liberation lies enslavement. Such liberation from all obstacles is finally illusory, for two simple reasons: human appetite is insatiable and the world is limited. For both of these reasons, we cannot be truly free in the modern sense. We can never attain satiation, and will be eternally driven by our desires rather than satisfied by their attainment. And in our pursuit of the satisfaction of our limitless desires, we will very quickly exhaust the planet.

Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed.

So if this isn't an endorsement of National Conservatism or Christian Nationalism, why?

Well, because prior experience shows that mixing politics with religion, officially, can have unintended results.  It fails, I suppose, to take heed of the council given in the letter to Diognetus, it not immediately, sooner or later.

Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign. 

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.  

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred. 

To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments. 

Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body's hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.  

That last line is particularly distinctive, "As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution.  Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself."  

A lot in the Populist right, like those practicing American Civil Religion itself, have excused themselves from an awful lot.  Apostolic Christians really can't.

And if the West's needs to be rescued from liberal excess, National Conservatism/Christian Nationalism needs to be careful.  For one thing, it would need to be serious about this item in its manifesto:

6. Free Enterprise. We believe that an economy based on private property and free enterprise is best suited to promoting the prosperity of the nation and accords with traditions of individual liberty that are central to the Anglo-American political tradition. We reject the socialist principle, which supposes that the economic activity of the nation can be conducted in accordance with a rational plan dictated by the state. But the free market cannot be absolute. Economic policy must serve the general welfare of the nation. Today, globalized markets allow hostile foreign powers to despoil America and other countries of their manufacturing capacity, weakening them economically and dividing them internally. At the same time, trans-national corporations showing little loyalty to any nation damage public life by censoring political speech, flooding the country with dangerous and addictive substances and pornography, and promoting obsessive, destructive personal habits. A prudent national economic policy should promote free enterprise, but it must also mitigate threats to the national interest, aggressively pursue economic independence from hostile powers, nurture industries crucial for national defense, and restore and upgrade manufacturing capabilities critical to the public welfare. Crony capitalism, the selective promotion of corporate profit-taking by organs of state power, should be energetically exposed and opposed. 

That gets directly to this:

[W]hat is bemoaned by the right is due not to the left but to the consequences of its own deepest commitments, especially to liberal economics. And it seeks to show that what is bemoaned by the left is due not to the right but to the consequences of its own deepest commitments, especially to the dissolution of social norms, particularly those regarding sexual behavior and identity. The “wedding” between global corporations and this sexual agenda is one of the most revealing yet widely ignored manifestations of this deeper synergy.

Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed.

That will be a tall order for conservatives who have held for decades that free enterprise equals corporate capitalism, and still do.  Right wing populists basically, and contrary to their tradition, hold the same thing.

Moreover, National Conservatives will have to be careful not to so blend their faith with their politics that the politics takes over and damages the faith. Ultimately, that's the lesson, maybe, of Quebec. Ireland, and Spain, all of which have been down a type of this road before.  It might well prove to be the lesson of contemporary Russia as well.

Charles DeGualle was a devout Catholic, but he did not attempt to force France into being a religious state.  Éamon de Valera basically did.  Now, having said that, in spite of the news regarding Ireland, Ireland is still a very devout Catholic state, so it can be argued that De Valera was right.  In both instances, democratic systems were preserved, which meant that the state's allegiances could be changed.  It's notable that they have survived that with a retained, if bruised, conservatism that might not otherwise be there.  Of course, once again, you can argue that about Spain.

Deneen seems less keen about preserving democracy, and that a danger here.

Elections provide the appearance of self-governance but mainly function to satiate any residual civic impulse before we return to our lives as employees and consumers.

Patrick J. Deneen.  That suggests a willingness to disregard democracy as being unreal.  History has shown, however, that to be incorrect.

Moreover, a close association with the state can be damaging to the very values that are sought to be protected.  Quebec's religious conservatism suffered heavily when the Quite Revolution came about, in no small part because the guardians of that tradition turned out not to be as loyal to it as thought.

And, finally, we have to recall that in some quarters, namely the US, and perhaps to a lesser extent Canada, well. . . in other places too, a close association with the state by Apostolic Christians can be corrosive.  In the end, Protestants don't really like us, and in the end, we have to make compromises with the state if we're really intending to govern from the pews, so to speak.

So does this mean that the Christian Nationalist have no point, and all is folly?  We must descend into Gomorrah unimpeded?

No.  But there are dangers here.  And probably the first thing we need to do is to be simply clear about our values in a secular society, and even in the pews, where there are also plenty who are willing to compromise Christianity.

These are, any way you look at it perilous times.

Footnotes

1. Javing said that, at the pew level, and influenced by the net making things more available now than at any time in the world's history, the direction is toward 1) orthodoxy or 2) Catholic traditionalism.  The 

2. Viktor Orbán is a member of the Protestant Hungarian Reformed Church, which might be compared to Presbyterianism, but his wife is Catholic and their children were raised as Catholic.  Katalin Novak is also a member of the same church. Hungary has a surprisingly diverse religious make up, with the Catholic claiming(37.2% of the population, Calvinist 11.6% , Lutheran's 2.2%, Eastern Catholic's 1.8%.  18.2% claim no religion and 27.2% simply won't respond to a question on the matter.

3.  Many hardcore right wing populist assert right now that elections that have not gone their way were stolen, which they were not.  However, just below the surface on some of this rhetoric is the suggestion that those who vote the other way are illigitimate voters.  Illiberal Democrats would seek to stifle "progressive" views anti democratically, but right wing populists take a more frightening position that those who hold the opposite views don't count at all.