By Davis Carlton

Doug Wilson has posted a couple of articles on Blog & Mablog (or as Pastor Bret cleverly refers to it; Blog and Mehblog). Wilson attempts to develop an alternative in his blog posts addressing national identity in which he asks if identity should be determined by “covenant or color” (see Part 1 and Part 2). Wilson’s covenant vs. color argument depends upon the tired and vapid equation of race with mere superficial color differences. More problematic is that Wilson has posed a false dichotomy. Covenants are central to Christianity, but there is nothing about the nature or existence of covenants that is remotely opposed to ethno-nationalism.

Wilson argues that contemporary America is comparable to the Roman Empire and concludes that this provides a Biblical analogy for how Christians should treat American identity and citizenship. Wilson writes, “The reality of America is far closer to the Roman Empire than it is to, say, the Magyars. In other words, when we go back to Scriptures in order to get the direction we need for our modern troubles, we do find something there to compare ourselves to. We do find a yardstick to measure ourselves by. There is something there we can reason from. The Roman Empire was a political and civic order that encompassed and included many ethnicities, while at the same time having one of those ethnicities in a dominant position. The Romans ran the show, but that show included a vast array of jostling ethnic groups. Sound familiar?”

Why yes, it does. I agree that contemporary America parallels ancient Rome. I argued as much when I defended America’s traditional European identity vs. America’s post-modern conception of a propositional state. What I find particularly odd is that Wilson seems to think that the Bible offers the Roman Empire as a model that should be emulated. Wilson continues, “There are those who say that the nation state cannot command our loyalties and allegiance. But America has mine. And it has the loyalties of millions of others. The thing happens, and has happened. What we are discovering now is that it cannot be sustained apart from the biblical idea of covenant, and see below.”

Wilson defines a covenant as a “solemn bond, sovereignly administered, with attendant blessings and curses.” Wilson views this as a solution to the inherent tensions in 21^st century America that can “encompass the sprawl.” Wilson writes, “Now what are we going to do if the nation is large, like we are? Christian nationalism in a place like New Zealand would certainly present challenges, sure enough, but not nearly as many as we have going on here. We are dealing with a lot more territory, many more ethnic groups, the primal wound of slavery, a lot of wealth at stake, and a really tangled history. We have to do it—if it is to be done at all—by means of a covenant, written down, and ratified by all the elders of the Sanhedrin, preferably at high noon, with photographers and journalists present.”

America has Wilson’s loyalty because Wilson is a member of the founding ethnic group. The Roman Empire wasn’t sustained by any sort of Christian covenant, even as Christianity spread across the empire. The effect of Christianity’s dissemination was the opposite of what Wilson would have us expect. As Christians under the dominion of Rome ceased to view Caesar as a god, they shifted to viewing him as nothing more than a Roman political leader and thus a mere agent of foreign conquest. The spread of Christianity corresponded with nationalist movements among the Germanic and Celtic tribes that had been previously subjugated. Empires such as Rome are always portrayed negatively in Scripture. The beast of Revelation is a metaphor for the Roman Empire following Daniel 7. Empires are fundamentally opposed to God’s design for mankind. They cannot be rescued by a covenantal arrangement.

Imagine being told that a local church plans on establishing a commune in which all private ownership by individuals and families is to be abolished and the families of the church would be expected to live together in a compound. Would it make sense to propose that such an arrangement might be successful if only it is ratified by a solemn covenant? Obviously not; communes have been tried throughout history and they always fail because God has arranged for people to live and congregate as families and extended clans. I believe that the same principle explains why multi-ethnic and multi-racial countries inevitably fail, and barring a stunning reversal, of course, America will share the same fate. Wilson mentioned the Magyars earlier. Their marriage of inconvenience in an Empire with Austria barely squeaked through a half-century, and was never close to congenial.

Wilson argues, “This is how we need to do it the second time, because this is how we did it the first time. I am talking about America by covenant. And I would submit that everything is coming unstuck for us because we have forgotten what a covenant even is.”

Wilson implies that his vision of an America united by covenant as opposed to common racial and ethnic heritage was “how we did it the first time” as the original vision of America’s settlers and founders. This simply isn’t true. After the American Revolution, John Jay defended a strong constitutional union between the former colonies by noting that Americans were “a people descended from the same ancestors.”¹

It’s not as though Wilson doesn’t understand the concept of ethnic loyalty at all. Wilson has in the past stated, “my affection for Israel is personal, in addition to being theological and political. My wife’s great-great-grandfather was Rabbi Cohn, one of my co-grandfathers is a Christian Jew, my kids and grandkids have cousins who are Israeli, and according to AncestryDNA, I myself am 2% European Jewish. Nancy is 11% European Jew, her mother 26%. What all this amounts to is that our family would be much more involved on an active personal level if terrorists overran Israel than we would be if terrorists overran Vermont.”

So…it’s ok to support Israel on the basis of common ancestry? Remind me again of what exactly Wilson finds so appalling about Kinism and its emphasis on ethnic loyalty. I would also be remiss if I failed to point out Wilson’s hypocrisy for having greater loyalty to Israel on the basis of his being 2% Jewish and his wife being 11% Jewish as compared to Vermont. The mostly white residents of Vermont are obviously more closely related to both Wilson and his wife than they are to the Jewish residents of Israel. This is akin to someone whose DNA come back 2% from some Amerindian tribe strongly identifying with said tribe when the overwhelming majority of their ancestors are white Europeans.

Wilson identifies three options to move forward: tribalism, nationalism, and globalism. None of these are defined, and this only raises more questions when Wilson states, “I much prefer Christian nationalism to Christian tribalism, but would work with Christian tribalism if we were forced to deal with a zombie apocalypse, or some other dystopic future.” Something tells me that we’re in for just such a dystopic future at least in the short term. Is the Christian tribalism that Wilson finds acceptable, albeit not the ideal, similar to Kinism or ethno-nationalism? If not how are they distinct?

This brings me to my final objection. Earlier I mentioned how Doug Wilson complains about the use of races to describe the major subdivisions of mankind, and that he prefers to use the term ethnicities or tribes as more Biblical terminology. What’s interesting is that the word ethnicity is seldom if ever used in English translations of the Bible. So why would Wilson consider this to be the more Biblical term? Because the Greek word ethnos is what is translated as nation. Traditionally the concept of national identity was tied to common ancestry as well as common language and culture. The understanding of nationhood has gradually diverged from its traditional meaning, so people have come to use the word ethnicity where the word nation would have commonly been used before. By acknowledging that the concept of ethnicity is Biblical, in spite of its lack of usage in English translations, Wilson implicitly acknowledges that Biblical nationhood is tied to a common ancestral origin!

If Biblical nationhood is tied to common ancestry and ethnicity, can there be any valid form of nationalism that does not seek to preserve the distinct ethnic identities of the world by maintaining homogeneity within ethnic homelands? What good is “Christian nationalism” that doesn’t preserve the Christian concept of nationhood? Wilson has put himself in a tough spot. He wants to correct the histrionic rejection of all nationalism represented by entities like The Gospel Coalition, while at the same time shielding himself from accusations of “racism” from the Left. This isn’t the time for half-measures. Vague appeals to covenants and undefined nationalism aren’t going to slow down a Left whose genocidal aims against white people and ruthless opposition to Christianity are not nuanced or ambiguous. The question of national identity will prove to be a major line in the sand in the years ahead. It is my sincere hope that Doug Wilson ultimately finds himself on the right side of this very important question.

1John Jay, Federalist Number 2. The full quote is as follows: “With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.”