Babeling Nationalism

Abstract

This article engages critically with Stephen Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism (Canon Press, 2022) and the Christian nationalist movement more broadly. It specifically examines Wolfe’s dual assertions that rightly ordered church communities (such as nations) cannot be composed of “two or more ethnicities” and that furthermore this tenet is rooted in “the Reformed theological tradition.” This article argues, to the contrary, that an ethnocentric ecclesiology runs directly counter to the best insights of the Protestant Reformers. In particular, Luther and Calvin offer rich interpretations of the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11, which narrate a rather different account of humanity’s present divisions than that of Wolfe. This conclusion is intended to serve as a launching point for a more far-ranging discussion of Christian nationalism’s present challenge to Christian institutions—including many classical schools.