West Port Experiment

Continuing to follow with interest Timon Cline et al over at American Reformer. Still parsing the field of contemporary “Christian nationalism” and trying to discern the good and the not-so-good; so I share this with some tentativeness, yet general appreciation thus far. Classical Protestant ethics and socio-political ethics fascinates me, so anyone participating in a retrieval has my attention.

Have enjoyed reading this article about John Witherspoon and the colonial Presbyterian iteration of establishmentarianism, contra Kevin DeYoung’s pluralistic take of the American revision of the WCF 23. Looks like others there have also written on the same. I still wonder to what degree Witherspoon may have been influenced by Enlightenment liberalism and what bearing that may have had on how he approached Christian magistracy. But that there is more continuity with the original WCF 23 than not just seems to sync with what I’ve understood about public religion in colonial America. Absolute separation just seems laughable on so many counts. I am also reminded how Dr. William Young opined that the American revision of WCF 23 did not technically contradict the original 1646 statement. While my denomination is the only NAPARC body committed to the original edition, I am at least coming to appreciate that we may have more of a genetic connection with colonial Presbyterian than I had first thought.

I think it’s also interesting as certain voices on my originalist Presbyterian wing of Reformed Christianity can sometimes take an all-or-nothing approach to colonial, civil religion and the U.S. Constitution. I do consider myself a spiritual heir of the Scottish Covenanters and an ardent supporter of Christian national establishments, but definitely am on the Revolution Settlement side of the equation and personally have misgivings about strident forms of political dissent. So a view of Witherspoon and other colonial Presbyterians that sees more continuity with their 17th century predecessors just sits better with me. At the very least, was 18th century America perhaps more like Judah than Samaria, though not in its best days under David, Hezekiah, and Josiah?

Also have enjoyed listening to the podcast off and on. A good one on Cotton Mather (adore the Mather dynasty and so much of the Massachusetts Puritan religious and social ‘experiment!’), and also helpful discussion with R.R. Reno, author of The Return of the Strong Gods, which I recently read and reviewed here.

Then just today finished this episode with Yoram Hazony on “The Virtue of Nationalism.” Very helpful in my deepening grasp of the post-war consensus and modern liberalism, which as Hazony insightfully points out, is all about individual liberty, privatization, and the absolutized virtue of consent. The globalist order is just a new version of imperialism (following the Greeks, the Persians, the Babylonians, etc.), where national identities and their distinguishing characters must be domesticated or even dissolved. Also coming to appreciate how Protestantism, in keeping with especially Old Testament revelation, is more favorable to nationalism vis-a-vis imperialism. Kind of makes sense, too, when one considers the nations where the Reformation took hold tended to talk up national sovereignty and conciliarism against the pretentious papacy before 1517. The one question I’d like to consider more deeply, though, is what of Christian empire under Constantine, Theodosius, etc.? Is empire generally bad, but useful if inherited and harnessed for the promotion of the Christian faith? Certainly Protestants were warm to Constantine and other Christian emperors, not just Christian princes of sovereign nations.