A Christian Nation: Against Paul Kingsnorth

A Response to "Against Christian Civilization"

A Christian Nation: Against Paul Kingsnorth

A Response to “Against Christian Civilization”

For, as far as this mortal life is concerned, which passes and is over in a few days, what difference does it make under whose rule a person lives who is soon to die, just so long as those who rule do not compel him into anything ungodly and wicked?

—St Augustine of Hippo, De civitate Dei 5.17

The “Decline” of the West?

In the nineteenth century, “the West” emerged as a unique geopolitical thought. In Japan, philosopher Fukuzawa Yukichi argued that the country’s future could only be secured by “adopting the spirit of Western civilization.” Ziya Göklap, an activist against the Ottoman Empire, said Turkish Nationalism could be secured only if the Turks were “determined to accept Western civilization.” An independent Turkish Republic could only exist if they “accept the civilization of the West, because, if we do not, we shall be enslaved by the powers of the West.”^[1] In other words, the West was not only a direction but also a civilization which alone could secure the future of the world. After the Great War, critics of “the West” emerged, suggesting the Occident already began to face its twilight, articulated most powerfully by Oswald Spengler in Der Untergang des Abendlandes: “the soil of the West is metaphysically exhausted.”^[2]

Yet 1922 was not the last year such a work was published. Every few years, publishers print and market another book about the decline of the West, saying that the West is entering its twilight. Esolen is self-aware enough to acknowledge this in his own jeremiad: “In this book I will indulge myself in one of civilized man’s most cherished privileges. I shall decry the decay of civilization.”^[3] While he goes on to posit ways in which we can make our culture great, and while his suggestions are generally worthy, he tells us very little about how faith should inform our political life. As has been aptly argued elsewhere, all voters function as magistrates in their own right in a republican system of government. Every person votes for what they believe advances the common good of the society. Thus, the values the individual person holds cannot be separated from the policies they support, the persons they vote for, and their teleological vision for the nation. In other words, republicanism can survive only when voters vote their conscience. When they are compelled, whether through hard or soft totalitarianism, to support a particular idea or policy, the nation is doomed by its nature.

By implication then, Christians are compelled by their conscience to vote for policies and candidates that represent Christian values and interests. For that reason alone, the absolute triumph of Donald Trump and the MAGA wing of the Republican party in the 2024 elections against the abortion-promoting, sodomy-affirming, genital-mutilating Kamala Harris represents a triumph of Christian values. This is reflected in the 60% of people who are optimistic about Trump’s second term, and optimistic people account for nearly 70% of voters under 30.

The West is in trouble, but it is not dead yet. From Spengler to Dreher to Esolen and now to Kingsnorth, critics have always been afraid of the decline and fall of the West. Those committed to its cure have always advocated for a return to strong institutions—churches, schools, businesses, homes. What the West needs too is a political institution committed to it. Since Christians make up a part of this republic, they have an obligation to vote for the values that constitute the Christian identity. They must desire to make America a Christian nation.

What is a Nation?

In 1882, French historian and Semitic scholar Ernst Renan gave a lecture at the Sorbonne defining a nation. Against German philosophers like J. G. Fichte, who argued that a nation was a religious, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic near-homogenous group of people with a shared history and culture and an independent magistrate,^[4] Renan believed a nation was a group of people who lived together who, avoir fait de grandes choses ensemble, vouloir en faire encore [“having done great things together and wishing to do more”], are united in their love for their heritage and desire to accomplish something great:

These are the essential conditions of being a people: having common glories in the past and a will to continue them in the present; having made great things together and wishing to make them again. One loves in proportion to the sacrifices that one has committed and the troubles that one has suffered. One loves the house that one has built and that one passes on. The Spartan chant, “We are what you were; we will be what you are,” is, in its simplicity, the abridged hymn of every fatherland.

The twentieth century liberal elites in Europe attempted trans-ethnic and trans-cultural empires, attempting to craft a larger vision of Renan’s vision for a nation. Instead of being bound by Fichte’s idea of a culturally homogenous group which embodied Renan’s spirit, globalist projects tried to capture Renan’s spirit without Fichte’s limits; in other words, a nation of nations which paid no heed to cultural, social, or religious practices and instead lived for the highest ideals: In varietate concordia, as the European Union puts it.

Such idealism, however, has proven increasingly short-lived. The fall of the Soviet Union, the rapid deterioration of colonial empires, and the post-Soviet wars in Azerbaijan, Rwanda, Syria, Turkey, and elsewhere all demonstrate the inability of universal principles to unite a people; indeed, the very ideals the founders of the EU advanced have given way to growing nationalism in places like Spain, France, Italy, the UK, Romania, and Hungary, among many others.^[5] And it is not in Europe alone; the former colonized countries have taken on an increasing nationalistic identity: Canada, Argentina, El Salvador—the second election of Donald Trump is widely heralded as the “triumph of Christian nationalism” in the United States. While nationalism was in vogue in the late nineteenth century, two world wars and the global ascendency of communism made trans-national unions and nations popular. Ernst Renan predicted this as well, saying that “Nations are not eternal. They had a beginning and they will have an end. And they will probably be replaced by a European confederation.” Though Renan’s vision was attempted after the Second World War, the experiment is in the process of unraveling. The liberal principles of the mid-twentieth century are hanging on, but they are dying. Reactionary movements of the twenty-first century have appeared to obliterate the “post-war consensus,” but we do not yet know our way forward in a world with increasingly divided loves and loyalties. The return of nationalism and populism is one such way; the average “Western citizen” has shown increasing dissatisfaction with the liberal order. All of this has been well-documented in Rusty Reno’s 2021 book Return of the Strong Gods.

Perhaps we are returning to Renan’s idea of a nation, believing in the strength of our Western heritage and the desire to again accomplish something great. However, it is not belief only in our Western heritage on the rise—it is instead the rise of Fichte’s culturally homogenous collectives with the spirit of Renan’s love for his home. In other words, Europeans don’t like Brussels and Americans don’t like Washington because they are both committed to the disintegration of the unique national identity of the particular culture that founded the nation—though this is changing with Trump’s return to the White House and the rise of “right-wing populism” across Europe.

Christians in the United States are acutely aware of their precarious position. As Aaron Renn has observed, Christians live in a world increasingly hostile to their faith. Trump’s support among Christians, particularly evangelicals, lies in his promise to restore the culture they feel slipping away from them. Some like Russell Moore and David French have opted to sell out to the Left, embracing a system of belief congruent with the values of the elite.^[6] Others have embraced Neo-Nazism. Some have found James Davison Hunter’s ideas of “faithful presence” a fitting answer to our cultural moment. While such ideas may have been successful in the past, a world hostile to the truth of Christianity must receive it in a fresh way—thus the rise of Christian Nationalism. Despite the fear-mongering that many people like French promote online, only 3 in 10 Americans support the ideas of Christian Nationalism, whereas two-thirds of Americans are skeptics or rejectors. Despite this, fear of Trump’s second term and its alleged “Christian Nationalist” sympathies force Americans of all religious convictions to evaluate the place of Christianity and its values in society.^[7]

Before moving on, it is worth noting an important objection. Aaron Renn suggests that “Nationalism isn’t American” because America isn’t a nation like those of Europe are. Thus, he seems to suggest Fichte’s ideas hold no water in this country, which is true. However, Renan’s position on “nationality” is an easy rebuttal to this. We are a nation in our commitment to accomplishing great things together—and we believe Christianity provides the best framework in which we understand what it means to be great, for it is our faith which in fact makes us great.^[8]

Quo Vadis, Paul Kingsnorth?

In the 37th Erasmus Lecture sponsored by First Things in October 2024, Paul Kingsnorth presented an argument against what he calls “Christian Civilization.” Though he never calls it by name, he is taking aim at all forms of right wing “Christian Nationalism” and those attempting to thwart the steady march of “progress.” He is not the first to observe that the West, however it is defined, appears to be in a period of decay, as I noted above. Citing the medievalist Christopher Dawson, Kingsnorth suggests the unifying principle of Western culture has always been the Christian Church, an institution which engendered a living faith and united all of Europe for the cause of Christ. As the Church decays, so too does Western culture. Before the advent of Christianity across Europe, the continent functioned like the African tribes of the early modern era did: tribal factions, petty disputes magnified into regional conflicts, and economic hardship. In the Middle Ages, Europe transformed into a culture of prosperity, joy, and vigor thanks to the widespread (and occasionally compelled) adoption of Christian mores.

While Christianity enjoyed a privileged position throughout the Middle Ages and in the United States until around the late 1990s, it no longer retains that position. Those attempting to establish Christendom or reform the US as a “Christian Civilization” are feeding into what Kingsnorth elsewhere calls “the Machine.” In other words, those who want the United States civil government to promote Christian values are attempting to gain power over other people using anti-Christian means. When we seek to establish Christian ideas within society using the power structures of society itself, we are not in fact establishing the kingdom of heaven in the way God intended for it to be established. Instead, we embrace

modernity and its endgame. It is the idol of material progress…The essence of civilizational Christianity is the reshaping of this radically unworldly faith [i.e., Christianity] for very worldly ends: the defense of a certain kind of culture. The gospels become a weapon with which to fight a culture war in a collapsing civilization.

Kingsnorth goes on to obliquely critique “culture warriors” and those who want to build a civilization “with a cross painted on it.” The solution to the decay and collapse of the West is humility; to defend the West, all we must do is repent:

There is wisdom to be found for us, in this disintegrating age, not in crusading knights or Christian nationalists, not in emperors or soldiers, but in the mystics, the ascetics, the hermits of the caves, and the wild saints of the forest and the desert.

He is right on the one hand—there is wisdom to be found in mystics, ascetics, and hermits. But it is not the only place wisdom may be found. When the barbarians were standing outside the gates of Rome, Saint Benedict established a collection of monasteries to pray for the restoration of the West. His attempt succeeded, and, while we have our own barbarians, they are among us.^[9] No longer can we count on the mighty geographical features of Europe to save us, nor can we count on a “wait-and-see” approach while we pray for Europe and the West. Instead, God has given us a nation established by Christians to promote the common good. In fact, Os Guiness says, to not contend for the establishment of God’s laws in the political sphere is a “failure of citizenship.”^[10] He goes on to say that the early Christians experienced persecution and, while they endured it because they had to, they lived in a system that did not permit the common man to contribute to the political and legal norms of the day. In our representative democracy, we have an obligation as citizens to fight for the good of our legal system, our communities, and our nation. If we genuinely believe Christianity is good for the world, that Christian values would benefit all who live under them, and that the Christian command to “love your neighbor” means to actively desire their good, then how can we not support Christian policies, politicians, and values which restore Christianity to its polis-shaping place; in other words, to make America a Christian Nation?

Kingsnorth reveals he does not understand what time he lives in. While his strategy of cultural renewal may have worked in the “positive” or “neutral” world, a “negative” world has no place for repenting Christians. Only God can transform a nation, yes, but God works primarily through secondary causes. While God occasionally works miracles as the primary agent of transformation, far more often God works through us to prepare the world to receive the King.

Kingsnorth is no critic of “nation qua nation,” but he does slip into the common error of metaphysically flattening every Western country with “the West” as if there is no significant difference between each of them. While there are true things that can (and should) be said about Western civilization collectively, especially as it is defined and united by its Christian heritage, running roughshod over the unique foundational principles of those nations does them a disservice. Americans interested in preserving “the West” must begin in America, Canadians must begin in Canada, Germans must begin in Germany, and so on. “The West” may be dying, but its restoration cannot be the resurrection of some pan-European idea where every country is united under the authority of the bishop of Rome—indeed, the European Union is the secular attempt at this ideal. Any study of the Middle Ages must acknowledge that, while Europe’s primary enemy lay to the East in Muslim hordes, Europe’s second enemy was the fractured relationships among Christians even then.

Rod Dreher argues the failure of liberalism which is antithetical to Christianity actively promotes vice. Pointing to the recent controversy over the gangrape in England, he says,

The raped working-class girls of Britain are the price people pay for liberal ideology…The rape-gang scandal makes it abundantly clear that liberalism, as it has been practiced for decades in the West (as distinct, for example, from its Hungarian version), is the suicide note of a civilization. Both the UK and the European Union are rapidly approaching a decision point.

Liberalism is not a framework in which our nation can thrive. Indeed, the values of liberalism as widely understood and promoted are either borrowed from Christianity (and so we would be better off using the original, fuller version) or antithetical to it (and so we should reject them). To give him some credit, Kingsnorth is right to criticize those atheists like Richard Dawkins who hate Christianity but want to enjoy its benefits: “The notion of pretending to believe in Christianity because you approve of its fruits and want, somehow, to see them return, is a dead end and a dead duck.” We do not want Christianity to triumph because we approve of its fruits; we want Christianity to triumph because it is the only foundation on which a political system can flourish—the only way the West may be saved and our nation restored.

He ends his essay with a series of false dichotomies:

What do we want, we who live in this time of decline and confusion? Do we want a restoration—or a transformation? Do we want war—or repentance? Do we want civilization—or do we want Christ? What if we can have only the one or the other?

What shortsightedness! Why on earth must we have only one or the other? Kingsnorth reveals here, perhaps more than anywhere else, that he despises republicanism, true liberalism, and Protestant political theology. While we can expect nothing more from a former Wiccan-turned-Romanian-Orthodox, we should certainly hold ourselves and our nation to a higher standard than that, as J. D. Vance has said: “The American people should expect more from their government.”

In a republic, we don’t have to choose between the good of the state and the good of our religion. Instead, we believe that the good of our state happens only when Christian values have been widely accepted. To preserve the West, we must preserve our particular polis. And to preserve our particular polis, it must first of all be Christian.

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^[1] Quoted in Jerry Brotton, Four Points of the Compass (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2024), 162–163.

^[2] Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1928), 1.5; cf 1.31; 2.506.

^[3] Antony Esolen, Out of the Ashes (New York: Regnery, 2017), 1.

^[4] J. G. Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation, trans. Gregory Moore (Cambridge: CUP, 2009), 496.

^[5] For those ideals, see Charles B. Blankart and Dennis C. Mueller, eds., A Constitution for the European Union (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004).

^[6] See Megan Basham, Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda (New York: Broadside Books, 2024). In the book, Basham catalogues and observes how people like Russell Moore, David French, Max Lucado, Phil Vischer, Tim Keller, Rick Warren, Francis Collins, and many others have betrayed the principles of their faith and the people they are supposed to shepherd by trading the truth about God for a series of lies promoted by today’s “Left”: abortion, CRT, gay marriage, climate change, #MeToo, and so on.

^[7] For an excellent overview of nationalism, see Eric Patterson’s article in Providence Magazine, “Christian Realism, Nationalism(s), and Religious Freedom.”

^[8] Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, trans. Sylvia Walsh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 13–14; cf 43. See too p 28: “I gaze only at my love and keep its virginal flame pure and clear.”

^[9] Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3rd ed. (South Bend: UND Press, 2007), 256.

^[10] Os Guiness on the Full Proof Theology podcast hosted by Chase Davis, “85—Os Guinness on Signals of Transcendence and Christians in Revolutionary Times,” Full Proof Theology, cited in Basham, Shepherds for Sale, 89.

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