Stephen Wolfe on the Case for Christian Nationalism- Part 1: Defining Christian Nationalism

Hey, everyone, welcome once again to another installment of Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host,

John Harris, as always, and I have a special guest I'm excited to, I guess, not really introduce because Stephen's been on the program before.

But for those who haven't heard those episodes, we have Stephen Wolfe with us today, who just released this book here,

The Case for Christian Nationalism. And it's actually kind of a long book. I read the whole thing because I really, it was actually very enjoyable.

But I wanted to also understand it to the best of my ability so I can ask

Stephen some good questions. And some of you have also submitted some questions from Patreon.

And so we'll see how many of those we get to. But Stephen, thank you so much for being willing to talk about this and give some of your time to the audience here.

Yeah, I mean, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. It's my third or fourth time. I think, yeah, it's always fun to come on the show.

Yeah, thank you. Hey, no, it is your fourth. I think you're right, because I think you did one solo and then two with Thomas.

And so now you're solo again. But I'm going to ask you the most generic question that anyone asks authors.

Why did you write this book? Yeah, it's funny. That's always the first question. It's always, yeah, you have to.

Yeah, so I mean, the funny thing it was, I was making a joke actually last night because I was tweeting doing a late night tweeting and I was outside smoking, which

I sometimes do to think and contemplate and all that. And he's Presbyterian. It's fine. Yeah. Oh, we just alienated half the audience.

The fundamentalist. No, but I was actually just tweeting one day a few years ago and a couple of years ago.

And I was like, you know what? Everyone's talking about Christian nationalism. What if I wrote a book on that? I think I sent that out and then

Jake McAtee at Canon then sent me a message saying, hey, pitch, send a pitch for a book on that.

And I was like, all right. But before that, I was thinking like, OK, they're using this term Christian nationalism.

They're throwing it out and it's supposed to be bad. And I've said this several times on different shows, but like the conservative impulse is to think, oh, they're accusing me of something.

I must not be that. I must say I'm not that and repeatedly say I'm not that and run from it.

Right. Which is just ridiculous and silly why we do things like that. But anyway, you want to deconstruct, deconstruct that.

But when I when I thought of the the the term, I was like, wait a second. I'm a nation.

I love my nation. I'm a nationalist and I'm a Christian. And why not be a Christian nationalist? I want to see my nation ordered to the things of God and heavenly life.

And so I was like, well, we should just I think it's a good term. And we just adopt it, own it.

And eventually they'll call us like Christofascists and they'll look ridiculous. But just own the term.

But why? Why own the term? I know this might be your second question, but I'll just get there.

Yeah, go for it. But yeah, why own the term? Well, because I think what we need, what

Christians need today is to have an active, assertive political posture and have this sort of spirit for their own good, for their national good.

Because for decades, we've had a very like a passive approach to politics. I mean, you have this exemplified in the theology, the political theology, if you want to call it that, of someone like Russell Moore and the typical evangelical position on politics is that we just be winsome and non -assertive.

But I say what we do need, what Christians need is a will to live and they need a justification to act in this world for their good.

Not only their temporal good, but also their eternal good. And so I'm going to write that book.

That's what I did. I mean, so it's not just regurgitated reformed political thought. You'll see me quoting everyone from Calvin to Bavink and everyone in between.

So it's not just that, but there is that. But it's also saying we Christians need to have this assertive will for our good.

And this includes, in a way, taking the public institutions for Christ, ordering them to heavenly life.

And so I tried to present a framework and arguments for that in the book. Well, it's an excellent book, and it's definitely written at a more academic level.

But I think that is what's necessary, at least initially, because what I'm hoping is that, and I'm sure you're hoping this, that this book inspires a number of related books to come out and Christians to be, as you just said, less sheepish, more aggressive, more willing to defend themselves against really what amounts to a very aggressive anti -Christian establishment.

One of the things that I thought, because I've been friends with you on at least on social media for years, is a lot of what you write about, you've been saying this for years, long before Christian nationalism was a pejorative.

And so I was kind of curious, how long did it take you to write this? Was this a recent thing, or did you have fragments sitting around for years that you just kind of thought, wait, this is the moment for this?

I mean, well, so I wrote a dissertation, I wrote two master's theses, and so I had a lot of writings, but only one chapter is kind of directly pulled from that work.

But yeah, I mean, I've been for a long time, I've been a follower of everyone from, you know,

Francis Turretin to Roger Scruton, and you can see that influence within the book. But yeah,

I mean, it took me about, I guess it took me about a year and a half to write while doing other things.

Yeah, that's impressive. Yeah, and I didn't expect it to be 500 pages or as long as it was, but like you said, it is kind of, it isn't a sort of academic level work, though I think people,

I mean, yeah, if you pick up a typical academic work, there are differences. Well, you can work through it.

Even if you're not academic, you can work through this and gain so much from it. You don't have to be an academic.

Yeah, I don't, yeah, the point was that the way I thought is that, okay, my world academically, you know, is like 17th century political thought.

And so I read people like, you know, Samuel Rutherford, and you see the way they present their arguments.

And if you read like Lex Rex, and then you read my book, you'll see some like pattern similarities between not only the arguments, but also the method.

And what I like about that is they actually thought critically that they said their argument has to be demonstrated.

The question has to be clear. What question are you answering? You have to make distinctions between principle and prudence.

You have to have definitions. You have to make crucial distinctions. But the problem in most political,

I guess, works you see today, it treats the reader as like a child. Like it treats them, it treats

Christians as if they live their life on Twitter, and they can't think beyond like tweetables, like tweets.

And so they treat them as like this bundle of sentiments that they kind of appeal to in different places to kind of construct an argument instead of making something that's demonstrated.

So even though I don't want people to think, oh, this is academic trying to speak to, you know, it's more like I'm a guy,

I'm a man trying to speak to other men saying, you're a rational being, you can think clearly, and I'm going to treat you as such.

Not as a student, not as a fellow guy saying, here's my argument as equals. Now, you know, take with it what you will.

But it was just like treating people as adults. And I just and I think that if you read it,

I hope that's the impression you get. And then you pick up like, you know, some work by one of these evangelical elites on politics, you say these guys are treating us like kids.

Oh, I did exactly that. Yeah, because I was simultaneously while I was reading yours, I was reading Samuel Perry's book,

Taking America Back for God. So and I just thought this is it's embarrassing in some ways to read

Samuel Perry, because it's so it's muddier. It's just not on the same level.

You quote, you know, source after source after source showing how steeped in the reform tradition, but not just the reform tradition, just Western tradition in general, you are.

And you're very knowledgeable about these subjects. You can take them all kind of weave them together into a cohesive narrative, which takes skill and understanding and years of work.

And it's pretty airtight. So many of the things you argue. And, you know, it's it's refreshing to see that for me, just because I've had

I haven't done as much schooling as you have, but I do have two master's degrees. And and it is frustrating to read some really good works of antiquity that Christians have produced and then to see what's on the top 10 of CBD, you know, and doing so well.

So yeah, and I want to I want to yeah, I appreciate everyone who's been helping me.

It's like almost like a grassroots thing. Just random guys. I don't even know. They're like, oh, I'm so excited to read the book.

And they post a picture. So I really appreciate that. But just take just take like the subtitles of some of these books like, you know, it's like, what is

I don't have I forget it. But I think even like the the Jesus John Wayne book has something about corrupting the faith and and then there's this

Andrew Whitehead book coming out that says something more like corrupting, corrupting the gospel.

And it's just you open these guys up and and like, who what do you what are you talking about? Like, do you yourself even understand the gospel?

Like, do you I mean, it's it's just it's treating let me put it this way. It treats the it it assumes that the reader is ignorant because you'd have to in order to have be that bold to say all these people are like corrupting the gospel.

You'd have to kind of assume that these people don't know anything about the Protestant tradition on what the gospel is.

You know, they they are they literally treat they have to like to make that sort of argument. They'd have to just say, yeah, my readers are ignorant.

I'm just going to assert these things. Oh, it's insulting. Yeah, it should be. It should be because yeah, and I try to show it's like, yeah, hear my arguments.

But also, hey, you know what? Like Turton said the same thing. Luther said, Bobby, like all these guys said the same thing. Yeah. And so if you're going to say like,

I think Andrew Whitehead's it's like his his subtitle it comes out next year. It says something like, yeah, it's like how

Christian nationalism corrupts the gospel. It's like, OK, well, I mean, I'm citing everyone.

I'm citing dozens of people from these from from the

Reformation to post -Reformation era. I mean, there's a lot of friendly fire going on if I'm corrupting the gospel, even though he hasn't actually read the book yet.

Anyway, the point being, I know I'm kind of rambling on here, but the point being is that like if you guys read the book, it's it's meant to treat you as rational beings, not just.

Mighty, you know, emotional. Yeah, it gives you a lot of tweets. And it also there's just so many assumptions, fundamental assumptions to some extent to our current order that you challenge that I think it's going to require people to just think outside the box for that reason, because, you know,

I've never thought, you know, about the basis for a revolution or whether it's right or wrong or some of the just fundamental assumptions

I think we have about men and women and about what a nation is. And just we go around life without arguing for these things.

And you kind of get behind that and question some things, which is is also refreshing because a lot of these are questions that I've had.

And some of them, some of the things you advocate are viewpoints I've had for a long time, but no one's really articulated them, at least not recently in Christian spheres.

And you go back 100 years, especially you start seeing a richness that just doesn't exist. And you brought that back.

You reintroduce people to some older thinkers who had some profound things to say. So thank you for that.

I thought maybe what we would do now is just jump into I have I think I told you before we started recording,

I have like seven pages, single space of quotes and questions, and we won't get to all of them, obviously. But I thought

I would start with just probably the the thing that people have tangled over the most over the last two years, which is a definition for Christian nationalism, because it's used, as you just said,

I think maybe it was before we were recording, but it's used as a pejorative so often. And it's

I think the first time I heard someone use it was right around the election in 2020.

And maybe it was Beth Moore. She made a tweet that went and got famous when there was some kind of a rally in D .C.

and she talked about how this was the greatest it was getting what you were talking about, like the greatest challenge to the gospel she's seen in her lifetime,

Christian nationalism. And all of a sudden I saw it everywhere. And you have a book that's so steeped in tradition and you prove it.

But yet and maybe this is a critique, I don't know the term Christian nationalism, though you you don't you address it.

You say, I don't I'm not going to go back to fascists. I'm not going to people who have used the term nationalism or Christian nationalism.

You're kind of selective and you pick some kind of more obscure uses of the term to justify your use of it.

So I was curious to hear from you what what Christian nationalism is.

And I do have the definition here, but in your own words, what is it? And then why did you feel

OK with using this term, even though it's it's being used as a pejorative against us?

So you don't talk about like the Bellarmine clubs or, you know, uses of the term from like 100 years ago that were more negative and not what you're talking about.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, again, like I said earlier, I think that it's the nationalist tradition kind of has it emphasizes more the national will to live.

And so I think this the West is kind of has this will to die. And so I think it's important for this moment to emphasize.

I mean, I do think you could say something like, you know, Calvin was a sort of Christian nationalist, maybe a

Christian city statist. However you want to, you know, you could say that post -Reformation

England is Christian nationalist. So that there but I think the importance of the term now is that it's it's bringing to kind of consciousness this national will to to to not just survive and not just avoid suicide or whatever, but to actually to live and assert ourselves to live well.

So that's kind of the general intent. And that is reflected throughout, I think, the book. But yeah, so like so why

I mean, in terms of the definition, the people I think are going to be really surprised by the definition

I give is it's it's also kind of it's it's a little people tend to think, well, it's a it's a

Christian nationalism is fighting so that for your country to have Christian values, like people say things like that.

And I was like, well, it's not the definition is not so much a movement like Christian nationalism. There should be a

Christian nationalist movement, but in itself, it's not so much like a movement. It's a it's a it's a state of things within a nation.

I mean, what does it mean to be a Christian nation that is that that is

Christian nationalist? Well, it means that you recognize yourself, that is the people, the we, you know, the as Christian, we're a

Christian nation. And as such, we're going to act collectively for our national good.

And that national good is going to be both the good of our temporal life and the good of our eternal life. And so the way that the summary of the base, the summary of the definition,

I have more extensive definition, but the summary definition is basically a Christian nation with the self -understanding or self -conception of it as such as a

Christian nation and acts for its good, both earthly and heavenly good. And so that's really that's that's the that's the idea.

It's so again, I think we have to then for, you know, a

Christian nation has to has to go from of being kind of a

Christian nation kind of in itself to say, no, we need to be for ourselves. We need to say we are this and we have to act for it.

So that's kind of a general overview of the definition. Yeah. And it's

I mean, this it sounds to me like is an active commandeering in your mind.

It's a very self -aware commandeering of a term that's being used to smear us. So this isn't you kind of admit that this isn't necessarily the term itself rooted in in every iteration of the use of this term, your your definition of it.

In other words, the, you know. So I think I think we're getting at is that. So when I use nationalist,

I'm not when I define it, I don't go off and say, OK, let's look at these different cases of nationalism, fascism.

There's like weird Finnish fashion or fascism. There's nationalism in East Asia, Southeast Asia.

So what does it mean? And therefore, I come up with a definition that that's that's what sociologists do. And it's frankly, really boring.

So what I did and it's just, you know, that's why they have just bad works on this. But so what

I did is that it's it's conceptually, what does it mean to be nationalist?

Just as a, you know, like as a philosophical concept, what means you're a nation is it's national nationalist.

And what is the ism or the ist means? It just means that you as the people are going to say, yeah, we're going to strive for our good.

Like I just that's just what in that sense, it's less controversial until you start to getting getting into, well, what does it mean to strive for your good?

But but it just it shouldn't be controversial that a nation as as as a nation would seek its good.

I think because that's it. That's that's all I basically define it as. Right. I think because I reproach this from a historical angle and I think and you say you approached it more from a political theory angle, right?

Yeah. That when I was looking at the different it or well, at least in America, how this term was used,

I I was running into proto fascist types and like the Bellamy Clubs.

And that was the first real big, I guess, concerted effort to use the term

Christian nationalism specifically. But they were talking about socialism. And then after the Nazis, the term nationalism becomes more in use.

And there were patriotism starts to fade out more. And I thought when this first started happening that you're

Christian nationalists, I think I had a probably the similar reaction to what you were saying not to do or but maybe for a different motive that it wasn't that I wanted to run from the term because but it was more that I I felt like the left was trying to call us

Nazis. They couldn't really do it. So they were trying to figure out, well, what's a an adjacent term that we can use that's been used in the past?

We'll just pick it back up. And what what I think I'm getting at or asking you is like is when you're picking up the term and you're using it because because the way you define it,

I mean, I can't really seem to argue with it like this is this is a good thing. This is a

Christian thing. But are you being innovative yourself? Is this your own? I'm just going to take this term for myself and now define it.

And since I have the top Amazon book on the topic, it's my term. And I get to do that because everyone's looking at me.

Or is this something that is rooted somewhere else? I mean, is it rooted in the pejoratives against us or is it is it rooted like where where are you getting the term to use it this way?

And I'm not trying to challenge you in a not like arguing against you. I'm just genuinely curious because I know people are going to get this question.

Because, yeah, so I mean, so you go ahead. I do. So I don't. Yeah, I mean,

I guess in a way it's it's I've you say commandeered the term and defined it how

I want. And I guess there is a certain element to that. But that being said, I do say in the book that it's that again,

I'm not going to go through these different cases and say, well, what is it from there? And then say, well, it's not this.

I'm not Nazi. I'm not fascist. It's just that's just so boring. So I didn't I'm not going to do the whole disavow game.

I just simply straight up said that I'm going to find it kind of as I want, as I understand it conceptually.

And this becomes reflected through the book. So I go on and I define what a nation is. And then I talk about what a

Christian nation is. And then I talk about what Christian nationalism of Christian nationalism as I work through it. And so I would just ask that if people get hung up on the term,

I mean, I just just say just just kind of get over it, you know, because I'm just not I mean, I know people like they have these questions and they they somehow want to fit the term into how it's historically used and all that.

I mean, I just say just I don't mean that in a demeaning way. Just saying I'm just not doing it.

I'm just not doing that. Yeah. We can't help it as historians, though, too. So yeah, I know, I mean, but but the thing is, like with nationalism, it's so one reason

I didn't want to get into that bait is because that could be like that is like volumes on its in itself.

Like what is nationalism? What is fascism? Like even like even the literature on fascism, even though you have these these like these dopey academics saying that like trying to define here the six like here's what the 10 things of fascism.

But I mean, it's really highly contested even what fascism is. And so am I really going to wade into that debate and try to and try to pull from this and say it's not

Hitler's? I'm I'm not going to do that. So I'm just going to go with the terms. I mean, define them conceptually.

And the people who want a sociological or historical analysis will just have to do their own thing.

Gotcha. Well, you know, it's like it's I should point out you do cite like people like William Fremantle and T .C.

Chow and Albert Clege. And yeah, that's just like a short kind of literature review of how it has been used.

But yeah, in similar ways to the way you're using it, though. So it's not completely you're not going to be completely innovative. There are people in the past who have used this term in the way that you're using it.

So anyway, yeah, because we got to probably move on to the meat here because this is more it's just I've seen the arguments are so often over the term.

So I figure we had to at least. Yeah, I know that. That's fine about it. One of the things you say, and this is

I there's some so many statements in this that I think, wow, like I was reading, this is really going to challenge the consensus.

But here's the first one I came across. The gospel does not supersede, abrogate, eliminate or fundamentally alter generic nationalism.

It assumes and completes it. That's on page 11. And so this I think some

Christians are going to be startled when they read something like that. And they're going to ask, how does the gospel assume and complete nationalism?

Because they've been so trained in that the politics is over there and civil society is over there and the gospel is this fully other thing.

So could you just flesh that out for us? Yeah, I guess that's it from the introduction, right? Yes. Yeah.

OK, yeah. So, well, it makes sense if you read the rest of the work, what

I'm saying. So, again, like you have to like if you have to take the definition of nationalism that I provide instead of these like swirly concerns you have in your head.

I'm not talking to you, but the reader, like you have to understand what I'm saying. And what

I mean is that I get in a sense that as I define it and as I discuss it through the other chapters, nationalism is natural.

And by which I mean that and I argue that like that Adam and his kind of progeny would spread across the earth.

There'd be separate distinct nations. I make arguments for this. And as I define nationalism, that these separate entities, these quasi -separate, whatever you want to call them, these nations on earth would seek after their national good just because they're a collective people.

They are in a sense like Aristotle talk about how the polis is this seeks after and has self -sufficiency.

These people who are in this common polis or this common nation would seek after their good.

So nationalism in this case would be these people recognize themselves as a people and seeking after that good for themselves.

And when I say the gospel does not supersede or abrogate that, I'm simply saying that just follows from the principle that grace does not destroy nature.

It assumes and perfects it. And which means that if I'm right that nationalism is a sort of natural thing, then it doesn't abrogate or supersede it or whatever.

It actually perfects that, which would perfect it into Christian nationalism. So that's the argument.

And yeah, but as you stated, if you just leave that alone, people will just, they'll lose their minds. We just have to follow the argument.

You'll understand what I'm saying. Yeah. And you do obviously expand on that. I even have a quote on page 15.

You say nations have the power to ensure that outwardly the things of salvation, the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments are available to all and that people are encouraged, even culturally expect to partake and be saved unto eternal life.

And I mean, obviously unquestioned until five seconds ago, unquestioned until modernity. Yeah. I mean, that's something.

Yeah. It's strange when people kind of freak out about that. Yeah. When there's even like Baptist doing work now saying like, yeah,

I mean, this post world Warren court notion of religious liberty, that that's

Baptist didn't believe that. Oh yeah. It's all just so, but, but I mean, yeah, just apart from some of the questions about the

Baptist, I mean, yeah, I'll press like Presbyterians and, and Anglicans and just pretty much everyone believed that, that there had that, that in some sense, outwardly civil society and even government can kind of encourage or promote true religion.

So, I mean, there are questions of like, I mean, that, that's true in principle. There are questions of how, and I, you know,

I get into this, there are questions of like, well, is it, what's suitable given the circumstances of each place?

So I don't like someone, someone on Twitter the other day was like, well, you didn't provide a form for like church establishment.

And I need you to put a form. I was like, well, I mean, it's, it's depends on what the people want.

I mean, or you could be like a divine law Presbyterian and say, no, it must be

Presbyterians everywhere. But that's, that's a job for the theologians, but just general, but in general, it's a, it's a question of the circumstances of the time and place of how that's going to be established.

But, but in principle, it's justified. You do say, and I can't remember where it is in the book that you think the American founding essentially, or at least at that time period, they basically got it right, which

I agree with you. Cause I mean, they had 13 different colonies and there were differences obviously in state religions and in these different places and so forth.

So it's not like there hasn't been a precedent already. That's like literally we're standing in where we're, but what you said about Baptist, so, so true.

It's, I remember when I was at seminary, just an off handed comment here that we were basically told in class, the

Baptists were responsible for secularism. And isn't that a good thing? And of course they called it principle pluralism, but, and this was the other denominations were bad, right?

They wanted to suppress everyone, but the Baptist believed in freedom. So anyway, let's see.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I do have a chapter on that where I basically, I give the, I give the credit not to the

Baptist, but to the congregationalists and the Presbyterians for, I mean, Baptists like to cite their favorite sources from like the mid 17th or 18th century.

But yeah, I just basically say that, no, and I say that, well, I say that the founding and that era in terms of religious liberty was, wasn't a, was not a step away from the principles of Protestant political thought on religious freedom and freedom of conscience.

It was actually a sort of culmination of experience. It's where Protestants said, Hey, we can work together despite our differences.

You know, you're, you know, Virginia's Anglican and Massachusetts, Connecticut, you're congregationalist.

And then there's just the others that have their own kind of colonial traditions on these matters. But we can all get together as Protestants with some

Roman Catholics in Maryland to start this country. And that's why like in John Jay in Federalist Two says we're not only common ancestry and other things, but we have common religion.

We have generally, we have the same religion. And so we can work together. It's just a reflection of Protestant principles that we can mutually affirm each other's faith.

So I'm Presbyterian, you know, I've, my, my alleged brother, William Wolfe is Baptist, but we can, we can, we can be, you know, mutually affirm each other's genuine faith despite our disagreements on some things.

So that means that he and I could also work on, we can be fellow citizens of a kind of pan -Protestant political group.

Now, I noticed though, in the book historically, when you speak about America, you generally focus on Puritan or congregationalism and you don't focus as much on Virginian Anglicanism.

Is there a reason for that? That's just because my dissertation studies is, is in that area.

So I know that, I know the, I know the New England Puritans better than the

Virginia. Okay. All right. That's just, that's just a matter of my knowledge. Yeah, no,

I gotcha. All right. So one of the things, this is so fundamental. We have to talk about it is when people talk about Christian nationalism,

I often notice they don't define what a nation is, which I think is such a fundamental discussion on all this yet.

We have to know what a nation is or else what are we talking about in the first place? One of the things you said, and this is again in the introduction, we got to get past this introduction.

Still on page 24, those who share a culture are similar people. And since cultural similarity is necessary for the common good,

I argue that the natural inclination to dwell among similar people is good and necessary. And this is,

I think, and you obviously expand on this a lot more in the book, but I was hoping you could expand for us here.

What you meant by that, because this seems to be the point at which you're accused of supporting segregation or something, because I think the assumption that so many must have is that God, if they really trace it back, must have been a racist since he divided everyone at Babel or something.

And I was confused. You just brought up William Wolfe. Stephen Wolfe. William Wolfe probably too.

You guys just want to shut the borders down. You don't like different people. You want everyone kind of the same, and that's just bigoted.

So you've already received, I'm sure, your fair share of these comments. Talk to me about this.

What is a nation? Is there a genetic component to this? What are the ingredients you would add to a recipe for nation?

Yeah, so I'll just start off with when I lived in Baton Rouge, I had a friend named Jason. If you were to talk to him on the phone, you would think that he was a 10th generation

Cajun or something. I don't know, that he is a true Cajun.

If you talked on the phone and he'd tell you how to make etouffee or gumbo, you'd think this guy was in Louisiana forever.

He has that accent. It's like, man, this guy must be wearing overalls, have a metal roof or something.

But you meet him in person, the guy's 100 % Chinese. And it's pretty funny.

We kind of joke about it a little bit with him. And he's 100 % Chinese.

And he was a great friend. I don't live in Louisiana anymore. But it's one of those examples of...

Because I'm from California. And when I lived there, he is actually being 100 % Chinese.

He's more Louisiana than I am. And I'm a white guy in Louisiana from California.

I mean, he belongs to that people more than I do. And he's 100 %

Chinese. I think he's third generation or something like that. I forget exactly. But the point being is that when

I talk about this idea of similarity, people, because I call it race brain, people instantly, they have to jump to this tick they have about racism or they have to jump to that.

And what I'm trying to do with the book is actually kind of deconstruct that a little bit and say, well, wait a second. You need to think about your own experiences in this world.

I mean, just the other day, I was around a group of guys. And most were white guys. But then there was also a couple of guys who were non -white.

And the way that we could talk to each other was if that we were just all kind of the same. So it wasn't so much a...

There was no racial barrier or whatever you want to say it. There was no cultural barriers. And so I'm saying is that when we kind of think about who are my people, when we say we, who are we talking about?

Just think about the fact that these people that you've experienced life with are people you can have common projects with.

You can have a common love. You can have shared values. You can have the same affection for places. And so that's what

I'm trying to get at. So I call it kind of a more phenomenological approach to ethnicity and similarity.

Just kind of dwell on your own experiences. But people want to kind of... They jump to these abstractions of either race.

And then from race, they jump to racism. And so I just think that if we should just kind of bring more to consciousness the fact that, yeah,

I mean, we have a lot of familiarity with people around us and we're drawn to these people and yet they are in sort of distant national origin different than us.

So I mean, I hope that kind of makes sense. Basically, I'm just kind of critiquing how people always want to frame things with this a very objective, almost like a genetic differences when we don't actually live like that.

We live and we're kind of drawn to similar people, not in terms of genetics, but in terms of just these cultural similarities more than anything.