May 18, 2023 Show with Virgil Walker on “Christian Nationalism: A Review of the Broad Spectrum of Its Professed Adherents”

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener,

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Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the

planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, the host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 18th May,

the 18th day of May, 2023.

I'm so thrilled to have back as a returning guest one of my favorite guests

to interview.

His name is Virgil Walker.

His name should be very familiar to the regular listeners of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio

since I have interviewed him many times and hope to interview him many more times in the future.

He's an author, he's a conference speaker, he's the executive director of operations at G3 Ministries,

and he's the co -host of the Just Thinking podcast.

Today, we're gonna be addressing an extremely controversial issue, Christian nationalism,

a review of the broad spectrum of its professed adherence, and we're also going to be announcing

the upcoming 2023 G3 National Conference in

Atlanta, Georgia.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, my dear friend Virgil Walker.

Are you there, Virgil?

I am always glad to be with you, brother.

It's a joy to get a chance to, once again, to talk about all the issues that matter.

Amen, and I was so thrilled to finally meet face -to -face your sweet,

wonderful, godly wife, T. Diane, at the

Church and Family Life Conference that took place, I guess it was two weeks ago?

Yeah, yeah, we had a great time there with the folks for the Church and Family

Conference there, and a wonderful opportunity to bring her along.

That's not something that happens as often as I would like, but when it does, it's an absolute joy

to get to bring her into spaces and places where I've been and meet people who

I've talked about or whose names she's heard me mention.

And for you, it was, you know, she'd hear your voice as I would be doing interviews.

She would hear your voice in the background on speakers, and so for her to put a face

and a voice, in your case, with a name and a face and all that was just great.

Got a chance to go out and grab a bite to eat in a couple of spots and get some great fellowship in, so it was a good

time.

Yeah, and what a beautiful area Black Mountain, North Carolina is.

It really was, really was.

Great, very picturesque, and weather was perfect, and so we really got a chance to enjoy some time there.

Yeah, it was good.

Well, I'm thrilled also that Scott Brown, who is the host

and orchestrator of these annual Church and Family Life Conferences, he has invited

me back to Man and Exhibitor's booth at their next conference, which already

has a phenomenal lineup for that as well.

Yeah.

And I am really excited about that, and I thank him for that

invitation and opportunity.

But I'm also coming up in the much closer

future.

I'm really thrilled again, as I always am, to be attending the 2023 G3 National

Conference.

And why don't you tell our listeners about this year's National Conference?

Yeah, this year's National Conference is going to be amazing.

Every time I even think about it, a smile jumps on my face, because I know the plans that we have here

and what people are gonna be experiencing at the conference.

The conference is our national biennial conference, so it's a once every other year opportunity to

connect with the National Conference at G3.

And this year, it's September 21st through the 23rd.

It will cover the doctrine of the sovereignty of God.

And so for us, this was an important doctrine as we seem to be encountering attacks

related to God's sovereignty in almost every sphere of culture, whether it's

the LGBTQIA plus mafia, if you will, the alphabet mafia, if you will,

who are challenging whether a man is a man and a woman is a woman, or some

facet of the gender spectrum, whether it's the idea of the challenge of marriage, or even

in school systems, how children should indeed be educated.

Well, God has ordained all of those things, that he's created one man and one woman, that

marriage is between a man and a woman in a covenant union for life, that children are the responsibility of parents,

not the state, and that we have an obligation as human beings and believers,

particularly believers in Christ, to educate our children to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

With that said, everywhere we turn, that is under attack.

And so it's important for us to gather as believers to revisit the important doctrine of God's sovereignty.

As we equip ourselves, local churches are equipped, and the body of Christ overall

is equipped to deal with the onslaught that we're encountering from the culture.

Like always at the national conference, we have just a host of some of the best

speakers around the world, Josh Bice, Bodhi Bakom, Stephen Lawson,

Paul Washer, Phil Johnson, James White, Mike Riccardi, Justin Peters, Owen

Strand, Ken Ham.

I mean, the list goes on and on and on.

We've got more than, we'll have more than 30 speakers.

Yeah, who will eventually make our roster that will be joining us for our event.

And so it's gonna be an important time for those who want to come and hear the best of preaching and

come away with just the sound doctrine of God's sovereignty to join us.

In addition to all of the preaching, we are gonna have a lot of different events.

I'm always kind of working with Josh Bice to create unique events and

unique fellowship opportunities and the like.

And so this is kind of the, I'd call this the world's largest family reunion as we gather.

We anticipate somewhere in the neighborhood of about 8 ,500 people from

within United States and literally around the world that will be joining us.

So right now, I think our numbers are somewhere in the neighborhood of about 6 ,200, 6 ,300.

So we're pushing record numbers for our conference.

And again, it's gonna be an absolutely amazing time.

For those who are interested in participating or learning more, you can go to g3men .org.

That's G -3 -M -I -N, like Mary, Indigo, Nancy,

g3men .org to learn more.

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I hope that as many of you who listen to this program will attend, will visit

me at my exhibitor booth.

And G3 has always been a wonderful time for me, not only to

reunite with old friends, but to make new acquaintances.

And some of those new acquaintances have become lasting friendships.

And even new sponsors of my program, new guests on my program.

It is always just such a worthwhile experience for me to be manning an exhibitor's booth there.

I always have a blast, and I'm always disappointed the day that it's over.

And so I, and in fact, this, I don't see all of those 30 people on your

website yet, but everybody who's on your website, I have interviewed all of them

at some point or another, with the exception of James Coates.

And I'm looking forward to getting him on the program if I ever have that opportunity.

I did interview James Coates' attorney when he was still in jail.

Yeah, yeah.

In fact, it was the day he was being released for not shutting

down his church when the Canadian government was

enforcing that mandate upon worship services.

And I was also very delighted that G3

Press had been so generous to

donate a copy of James Coates' book to every

man that attended my recent Iron Trip and Zion Radio Free Pastors Luncheon.

And that was a rich blessing.

I thank you and everyone at G3 Press.

And Scott Annual was the specific brother who put that

into action and got me those books.

So I just, I got a big place in my heart for G3, that's obvious.

Yeah, yeah, well, we're happy to do it.

And the whole goal of G3 is for the whole purpose of educating and encouraging and equipping

the body of Christ with sound biblical doctrine.

And so I know our Executive Vice President, Editor -in -Chief Scott Annual was excited to have the

opportunity to serve in that way.

I remember when the request came and he was in his office and wanted to participate in that way.

And so we were grateful to do so.

And that book, by the way, is Preaching and Hearing God's Word by James Coates.

Well, as I said before, today's conversation involves a very

controversial issue.

Now, it has occurred to me, I've been a Reformed Baptist as long

as I have been saved.

Well, perhaps two months or so after I was saved by the grace and mercy of

Christ, I came to embrace the doctrines of sovereign grace.

Thankfully, I was saved in a Reformed Baptist church.

I didn't have to go through years of hearing a false gospel or other than

the fact that I was raised Roman Catholic, of course, but I mean, during my years as an evangelical,

I didn't have to be deprogrammed from a lot of

stuff.

God was very kind to me in his providence that I was saved in a confessional

Reformed Baptist church.

And it has occurred to me that within the last five years, and keep in mind, that was about the mid

-1980s when I was saved.

Over the last five years, it's been amazing how many issues have arisen amongst

Reformed people, and specifically even Reformed Baptists, that have

caused a lot of infighting, and splits, and heated

argument, and unfortunately, ad hominem, and

mockery, coming from all sides of every issue that rises up.

And I've never seen anything like this amongst the formerly

fairly close -knit circles of confessional Reformed Baptists before.

We've always had division of some degree, but one issue after another over the past

five years, I mean, friendships have been destroyed over some of these divisions.

And it boggles my mind why some of these issues would end

friendships.

But we are talking about another one of those issues that has raised the ire of a lot of

folks on all sides, Christian nationalism.

Now, usually when I'm doing a program, and we're addressing a specific theme like that,

I would say, please give us a working definition of Christian nationalism.

But unfortunately, you can't just cite one working definition of that.

That's one of the reasons we're doing the program today, is because there seems to be

a broad spectrum of professed adherence of Christian nationalism that don't even agree with

each other on a working definition.

So perhaps give us what you can from your knowledge of

this phenomenon, at least a bare minimum of things that are

typically found in a list of descriptions of an ideology

known as Christian nationalism.

Yeah, I'd be happy to.

I wanna go back to something that you mentioned earlier, which is the tendency and the natural inclination for divisions

to arise among those who are indeed believers.

And I think that has been historically true.

I mean, even as far back as my evangelical experience

with the emergent church, right?

You had these young, hip progressives who started out with rather sound kind of biblical

doctrine and theology, wanting to get away from more formalized expressions of church

worship and the like, and kind of pontificate, if you will, about doctrine, about what the word of God

said.

And they, for a time, were a force.

Those who leaned a little bit more leftward and were a little bit more progressive and who wanted to kind of take a more of

a postmodern approach to their understanding of

theology would go that direction.

And so there were good people who we knew that we would see that would take that shift.

And then you had another group that kind of young, restless, reformed folks who were

trying to figure out how to kind of, they had previously experienced a more feminized form

of evangelicalism, from the music to the preaching to the softening of every aspect of

church experience.

And their thought was, I want a muscular, kind of robust approach to

Christianity.

And so they would follow people like Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill and some of those guys into that

direction.

And then as things began to kind of teeter off, you began to see a division there, even with Mark Driscoll and others who

kind of got sideways with people like John MacArthur.

And so you would see that kind of expression, things separated and then ultimately where things would land.

I, as I witnessed this next movement, while I make a comparison only to say that groups

like that who start out with great relationships with one another and have the tendency to break off,

often do so as a result of a reaction to what they're seeing in current culture.

And just like the two previous movements that I mentioned, I don't believe that this current quote unquote movement

is any different in that I think most of them, many of them have just witnessed the rise

of drag queen story hour, right?

They've witnessed the rise of the LGBTQ movement in culture.

They've witnessed the rise of woke -ism.

And as they've witnessed that and seen that, they're trying to figure out how do we move

forward?

And so their thought is there must be something missing in the church that is allowing that to take place and we

must do something to move forward.

By the way, I just want to divert from our subject temporarily.

I just heard from a very credible source while this program has

been on the air that someone who I highly revered, who I have had on this

program at least twice, who has written a glowing,

wonderful commendation for Iron Trip and Zion Radio that I will treasure forever.

Dr. Harry L. Reader was killed in an automobile accident and pronounced

dead on the scene.

Very tragic news and we will be providing you with more details

on future Iron Trip and Zion Radio broadcasts and we will certainly be having, God

willing, a tribute program to him since he had such a significant

role in the body of Christ as being a powerful, unwavering voice for

truth.

And Harry Reader, who was the senior pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham,

Alabama.

I last interviewed him on August 22nd of 2022 on the authority

and trustworthiness of scripture.

And he will certainly be missed.

And as I said, we'll keep you folks updated and let you know when we will

be airing a tribute program to him.

And I ask of you all to pray for the Reader family and for that

fine congregation, Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama, as they have lost a giant

whose shoes will never be able to be quite sufficiently filled

as most giants of the church seem to be irreplaceable.

But we know that he is in a far better place now and that's just not a rote

placard as people will say very often about the loss to die.

He or she is in a much better place.

Well, we know that Dr. Harry L. Reader certainly is in a much better place.

I'm gonna give our listeners our email address if you have a question on Christian

nationalism.

I would love it if those who are on both sides of this issue

were to write in questions.

Please don't write in speeches.

I won't read speeches, but send in questions whether you

affirm Christian nationalism, at least a brand of it, a specific brand of it, or if you

are radically opposed to it, or if you just don't know.

Like many people, I have been seeing over and over again, people who are widely

known and highly respected pastors, theologians, scholars,

seminary professors, authors, and so on, when it comes to this subject,

they are at a loss to be too definitive about it because of the fact that there are

different voices within the umbrella of that title, Christian nationalism.

And so therefore, there are many people who I know and love and respect who will tell

you they don't know if they're a Christian nationalist or not.

As Votie Baucom said in one of his recent messages

at a conference that Founders Ministries orchestrated, Votie Baucom

said, well, if you ask me if I'm a Christian nationalist, my answer will depend

on who you are and why you are asking me that.

So that may be the case with you.

I am at a great loss.

I'm interviewing a guest today that is a lot more knowledgeable on the spectrum of beliefs on this issue than I am.

And there are things about what I have heard that sound very appealing, and there are other things that make

me very nervous depending upon who is voicing their opinion about it.

But our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state and country of residence.

Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Let's say you are a Christian nationalist, you're in a church that is opposed to that ideology

or vice versa, and you'd rather not identify yourself at this point in time.

I understand things like that.

But if it's a general question, please give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

Well, before we go to the first commercial break, Virgil, if you could give us some kind of a definition

that most, if not all, of the adherence of what is called

Christian nationalism agree upon in regards to their worldview

and their theology and their eschatology and so on.

Yeah, I think in short, it's difficult to do that, primarily because there is no one

definition.

There are multifaceted definitions.

I think there are people who are trying to wrestle with the ideas and issues.

And I know you're heading into break.

I said this in my article.

I said, if by Christian nationalism, what is meant is an active form of patriotism

where borders are protected, national sovereignty is enforced, and society moves back toward a

Judeo -Christian ethic, then you could call me a Christian nationalist.

However, I think it's important to think through what those two words mean, the words

Christian and nationalism.

When we come back, we can talk about that.

I'll also, by way of directly answering your question, give you the definition as written by

Stephen Wolf.

Stephen Wolf's a writer of a very voluminous work,

490 pages in his book, A Case for Christian Nationalism.

He writes this, quote, my definition of Christian nationalism is a Christianized

form of nationalism, or put differently, a species of nationalism.

This, he said, thus, I treat nationalism as a genus, meaning that all that

is essential to generic nationalism is true of Christian nationalism, end quote.

And so there you have Stephen Wolf's definition of Christian nationalism.

The reason I mentioned him is because within theological circles, his work is the work that

most are interacting with because it is a published work.

Within evangelicalism, there are a myriad of different ideas around that, and people

are every day kind of forming their ideas, shaping their ideas, and trying to put forth

statements to land the plane on what they believe, why they believe it, and the like.

And so that'll provide a framework for our conversation.

Like when we get back, I would love to talk through the two words that are trying

to be blended together, Christian and nationalism.

We could unpack that on the other side.

And since you mentioned Steve Wolf, I just wanna quickly say that there are those

who have a high regard for some of the voices within Christian nationalism

and are contemplating the adoption of that ideology for

themselves who are very opposed, at least in

certain cases, with Stephen Wolf's book.

Absolutely.

So I just don't want anybody to think that he is a monolithic voice for Christian

nationalism.

And perhaps one day he will come on the program to give a rebuttal to this, or we can have perhaps a debate or

something like that.

But we are going to our first break.

The email address for your questions, again, is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Virgil Walker of G3 Ministries right after these messages.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend, Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I

are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the G3 National Conference.

That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I have been preaching, teaching,

writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott

Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.

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Chris Arnson, I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd for the G3

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We're now back with Virgil Walker.

He is the Executive Director of Operations with G3 Ministries.

And we are talking about a very controversial theme, Christian

nationalism.

And pick up where you left off, Virgil.

You are going to get more involved in a description of what we are talking about today.

Yeah, yeah.

I initially kind of led with the definition given by Stephen Wolfe.

His book, A Case for Christian Nationalism has really become kind of the gold standard for the

theological facet of Christian nationalism.

And again, that's solely because he's written a 490 page volume about the topic

and subject.

So it's with that printed material, that printed work that I and others here at G3 have

interacted with.

While again, you mentioned it as we took to break, Stephen Wolfe is not the

standard bearer in that he is emblematic, the

example of all of quote unquote Christian nationalism.

But because of the fact that he does have a published work on the subject matter, we took that

seriously and reviewed it.

There are other published pieces, but the work that kind of lands into our lane

of Christianity and the like would be Wolfe's book.

And so that's what we dealt with.

I will say this, there are versions of this that differ.

And you could even categorize some of the ideas around it.

You've got everything from what we would call maybe a conservative patriotism, right?

Those who are conservative patriots to those who are maybe conservative and political with their

patriotism.

Those who are quote unquote Christian nationalists.

And then there are brothers who are more theonomist and post

mill and their eschatology and the like who hold to

kind of what's being called mere Christendom.

And so there's a wide variety, a wide range of people that we're dealing with, more of the folks who are more Trumpian

and where you get a lot of the Trump ideas and that kind of thing.

Those folks are kind of General Flynn followers and the like, and they're more charismatic.

And they're large numbers.

They're the ones who are showing up at rallies and are trying to push Trump across the victory line.

And again, not to say anything negative about Trump or positive about Trump or affirming in any way, just trying to lay out

the landscape of this broad idea known as Christian

nationalism.

But before folks like you and me who are in very serious circles,

Reformed Baptist circles particularly, I think it's important for us to step back and look at what

this actually is.

And I think you have to begin at the beginning.

If you remember, Chris, when we started looking at woke church, things like woke

church from Eric Mason, and we looked at the social justice movement as it began to enter

evangelical circles.

And we began to look at CRT, critical race theory.

And we actually walked backwards to say, where are these ideas coming from?

We know that there's nothing new under the sun.

So it's important that we go back and see where these ideas germinated from.

And when we did, we walked all the way back to Karl Marx and the Marxist

ideas that began what we know as critical theory.

And so out of critical theory comes critical race theory.

Out of that, we get intersectionality.

Out of that, we get the movement for social justice.

Out of that, we get cries for justice within a particular racial ethnic group, right?

But black lives then matter, right?

And so unfortunately, I think what's happened in evangelical circles is we followed movements,

adopted their ideas, branded ourselves with them, only later to find out it probably wasn't the

wisest thing in the world to begin parroting things like black lives matter

without going back and doing kind of a historical dive into where is this stuff coming from?

Only later to have the ladies who started the black

lives matter movement admit that they had been trained Marxists.

And so then we had to go back and say, okay, what does that mean?

In the same way, I think it's important before we adopt quote unquote Christian

nationalism to go back and understand what is nationalism.

And so I wanted us to do that.

I wanted to go back and do that.

So I wrote a piece about this subject matter.

You can find it at g3men .org.

And the title of the article is The Dangerous Intersection of Christian Nationalism

and Ethnocentrism.

Now, folks have kind of given me flag for using the term ethnocentrism.

Some believe that I think that ethnocentrism is equivalent to racism.

I wanna categorically say that that is not true at all.

Ethnocentrism is a central focus on an ethnic group.

There's nothing inherently sinful about focusing on a particular ethnic group, but there can be

something sinful about focusing on a particular ethnic group.

So I think we need to pause and talk about that.

That's as it relates to the actual title of the article.

As it pertains to nationalism, nationalism for the most part is defined

in this way.

And again, just defining our terms.

Nationalism is an ideology that emphasizes loyalty, devotion, or

allegiance to a nation or nation state and holds that such obligations outweigh

other individual interests.

So in other words, when you think about nationalism, nationalism in and of itself

considers a nation, an entity of itself with values, ideas, and interests

that actually supersede those of an individual group.

That's important to know.

And the reason why that's important to note as it pertains to the word nationalism is this, we live in

a democratic republic.

And one of the things that the founders embedded into our constitution is the idea of

individual rights and that individuals are innately endowed by their creator with

certain inalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

But what nationalism does is nationalism says, apart from your individual rights, the nation has

a say in how those rights, if you have individual rights and your

rights as individualistic as they may be, do not supersede the rights of a

nation.

Now, in most instances, if your values align with the nation's values, this is not

problematic.

However, if your ideas get out of step with what the nation says is right, just, and true,

then you run into great problems and traumatic error.

Most people have never, or a lot of people, I should say, a number of people have never really studied

what's taken place in Europe and the different nationalistic movements and what's known

as the Volkgeist, the V -O -L -K -geist.

This is the ethnic nationalism that permeated Germany right

before World War II.

And it actually laid the groundwork for what would follow next as a result

of ethnic nationalism.

The ethnic nationalism in Germany made it very easy for that nation to feel like

anyone that did not identify either ethnically or nationally with ethnic

Germany, they were to be othered, they were outsiders, they were castaways,

and things could be done differently to them than were other people that were a part of the ethnic

German nationalist movement there.

So it's with those ideas in mind that we've got to ask the question, if we add the word Christian

to the word nationalism, does it, is nationalism bettered

by it?

Is it made better?

In other words, when I think about what's been done with the word socialism, right?

We have AOC who's used the term democratic socialism as if the democratic

word attached to socialism actually makes the socialism any better.

We've got to ask the same question as Christians.

Does adding the word Christian to the word nationalism better nationalism?

Now, I don't believe the vast majority of people out there who are watching our

society and its ethics crumble to the ground are thinking in these terms.

I really believe that for the most part, the average Joe person every day is saying, hey, if being a Christian nationalist means

I'm fighting against this woke culture that tells me that a man is a woman and a woman is a man,

or that tells me that I've got to cut off my kids' body parts in

order to affirm the identity of their choosing at the beginning or end of the day, then I'm for

Christian nationalism.

And before we pragmatically adopt that idea, it's imperative that we push the

brakes and pause and ask some very important questions about what we're adopting

as a name.

Does that make sense?

Oh, yeah, it makes perfect sense.

And let me just quickly insert here something

that might be on the minds of listeners who find the idea of Christian

nationalism very appealing if they're not already robust defenders of

this concept and who wear that identity very proudly.

Every Christian, to my knowledge, when we go to ballot boxes

and we vote, we would love to see in that voting booth

options that were men of God, that we had

confidence that they were truly regenerate, that they shared the core

essentials of our biblical theology.

And we would think that that would be a gift from God, no matter what office

we are voting for, from the lowliest of local offices to the President of

the United States.

And wouldn't it be amazing and wonderful if God sent a blessing to this country where

the President of the United States was a genuine born -again Christian and most of the governors and mayors and

senators and congressmen were born -again people.

And we were governing this nation according to God's law and

God's will.

And to just put it in the caveat here, and I'm not speaking of an

ecclesiocracy where a specific denomination has rule, where we

see what tragically happened in our past when Pato Baptists martyred

Anabaptists and Baptists martyred them very often with gruesome and

torturous deaths.

So I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about where a recognition that God's law and will are the best

and we should have a nation governed by those principles.

So just respond to that because I'm assuming that that would be on the mind of anyone who is looking

favorably upon Christian nationalism.

No, I would say yes and amen to all of that.

Chris, I've co -authored a book about that called Just Thinking About the

State where as a result of the book, I'm informing true believers not to leave their

Bible at the church or at home when they go to the voting booth.

I'm telling believers in Christ that their decisions about their government and

the choices that they make would be informed by having a robust

biblical worldview.

And so as you well know, I've been very active in speaking out about

issues like abortion, speaking against abortion, about providing,

making sure that the civil magistrate put laws into place that protect the life

of the unborn, that they would enjoy equal protection as those who are living

outside of the womb, as those who live inside the womb.

And so I am for all of those things, yet and still, I don't have to be, I don't have to

call myself a Christian nationalist in order to

engage in that behavior.

I'm just being a faithful believer in Christ, living out what God says in his word

about how I should engage the culture as a result of a life as a believer.

I think the difference is this, Chris, I think there's a difference between a believer in Christ who

comes to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, their heart has been transformed by the power of the gospel,

they have made a decision to live their lives in a way that honors God, and they decide to live in every

sphere of life in that way informed by that worldview.

I think there's a difference between that person and someone who says, I am in favor of not an

inward out, not a transformed heart in and an outward working, but someone who

says, I want government to produce the conditions to

enforce that kind of behavior throughout the nation.

And here's what I mean.

So let me put some meat on the bones of this.

I mentioned Stephen Wolf's book earlier, it's called A Case for Christian Nationalism.

In fact, could you pick up, right when we return from our midway break.

Please be patient with us folks, the midway break is always a bit longer than the other breaks because Grace Life Radio 90 .1 FM in

Lake City, Florida is required by the FCC to localize this program

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And send in your questions to Virgil Walker on Christian Nationalism to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

We'll be right back after these messages don't go away.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend, Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I

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That's also the email address where you could send in a question to Virgil Walker on Christian nationalism, and

that's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state and country of residence.

Before I go to any of our listener questions, Virgil, I would like for you to continue the

thread that you began before we went to the midway break.

Yeah, absolutely.

I was just sharing with, based upon your question, should Christians be

informed as they enter the polling booth, as they think about

their governing leaders, as they think about the civil magistrate, wouldn't they want

that person to uphold biblical ideas and biblical standards?

And I just made the case that, I've written a book about that.

I've co -authored a book with Daryl Harrison about that called Just Thinking About the State.

So absolutely, yes and amen.

Christians should be fully informed by holding a biblical worldview, not

leaving that at the church door or at their home, leaving their Bible at home before entering

the polling booth.

No, absolutely not.

We should, all of our biblical worldview, our biblical worldview rather should

inform every decision that we make as it relates to governance.

With that said, I think there's a difference between a Christian transformed by the power of God,

a heart desires to follow him who's living out that biblical worldview, that gospel centered

focus in home life and family life, that they're a part of a local church and that they're

living that out in every sphere.

There's a difference between that, which I would call bottom up, right?

A transformed heart informing a life that's transformed by family, informing a life that's

transformed by a local church, impacting the public square.

I think there's a difference between that and governance from the top down.

Someone who's saying that we want to have a nation establish itself as Christian and thereby

from a federal standpoint, push the ideas of Christianity throughout the

country, regardless of others' beliefs.

Now, again, that sounds very dramatic, almost like hyperbole.

Nobody's gonna force people to be Christian in a Christian nation.

And perhaps that may well be true.

But as I look at Stephen Wolf's project, as it relates to Christian nationalism, he says this in his book, he

says this,.

Quote,.

The question is whether a Christian magistrate having civil rule of

civil society, having civil rule over a civil society of Christians may

punish civil power, false teachers, heretics, blasphemers, and

idolaters for external expressions of such things in order to prevent one,

any injury to the souls of the people of God.

Two, the subversion of Christian governance, Christian culture, or

spiritual discipline.

And three, civil disruption or unrest.

Wolf says this, modern religious liberty advocates deny this.

And I, Wolf, that is, affirm it.

And so what he's affirming here is that the civil magistrate would determine who false teachers are, who heretics are, who

blasphemers are, and punish them using civil power.

That they would determine what is a, quote, unquote, injury to the souls of the people of God, end

quote, and they would punish that person with the use of government and

civil magistrate's power.

The question then becomes this, if that's what we're advocating for in a Christian nation.

The question is who gets to define who is or is not a false teacher, or a heretic, or a

blasphemer?

There are some in my circles, I would say that those who promote the

prosperity gospel, that they're heretics.

Well, if my brand of Christian nationalism is in play, does that mean that we could perhaps

put in jail Creflo Dollar, that we would put in jail Benny Hinn, that we would put in

jail, that we would impose the civil government, the civil magistrate to do

something from a standpoint of exerting civil power to punish these

people who are promoting different ideas?

The question then must be asked, will the Baptists decide this?

Will the Presbyterians decide this?

And then what do you do in a society like ours with people who are Mormons, or Catholics, or

Muslims?

How do you respond to them in a Christian nation?

And if we determine that Christianity is now a state religion, how will

others, Muslims per se, express their version of faith?

Now, while Wolfe's book admits that they can hold these ideas, they can hold the

ideas that are contrary to a biblical worldview, they cannot

express those in any kind of public way.

So religious liberty would absolutely be abandoned, and we would have to really take a closer

look at the First Amendment, and talk about

government -imposed nationalism, which tells us that the

nation has its own church, and that we are to operate from that framework.

So that's kind of how that all plays itself out.

Those are questions, and again, there are some who call themselves Christian nationalists who have worked that

out, and there are others who have not worked those issues out.

And I think it bears, while there are those who are excited about Christian nationalism and say, oh, Virgil,

that's just hyperbole, nobody's gonna do that, nobody's gonna punish in that way, nobody's gonna operate in that way,

you're mistaken, all I'm doing is reading the words of Stephen Wolfe,

who has presented his case for Christian nationalism, and I'm simply asking questions about these things.

And I think to ask the question is fair.

I think it's fair.

I think it's fair for us to put the brakes on, and before we eradicate aspects of

the Constitution, of amendments and such, that we push the pause button and ask

some honest questions that cause us to think through these issues.

And we don't have to separate as brothers to do this, we don't have to, you're on the wrong side of history,

we don't have to engage in the kind of rhetoric that causes great division.

I think we can amicably, honestly, ask and answer these questions, and think through whether or

not we wanna embrace these ideas.

Yes, what Stephen Wolfe said, I don't know if he would agree with

what I'm about to say, but it just sounds too close to what I mentioned earlier,

ecclesiocracy, as opposed to a theocracy, where you're taking the

specific doctrines of a specific denomination,

and if they were to rule a nation, you might have people,

once again, like Baptists, facing very severe persecution, as we have

suffered in the past, not only from Roman Catholic,

but primarily from fellow Protestants.

Right, right.

And there have been really gruesome and nightmarish

descriptions of how Anabaptists and Baptists have been treated by

brothers in Christ, who shared the same gospel with these men,

just because of a difference of opinion on the ecclesiastical matters, and

especially on the issue of infant baptism, a rejection of infant baptism by these

Anabaptists and Baptists.

But we do have a couple of listeners who want to have

you answer their questions.

We have Grady, wonderful brother in Christ, who is an avid listener to Iron Trip and

Zion Radio, and a generous supporter of the program, who I met for the first time face -to -face at a G3

conference years ago.

Greetings, brothers.

Virgil, I heard our brother Voti Baucom on the Sword and Trowel podcast say that we need to put the

word white before Christian nationalism, because the CRT woke

Marxist movement is using this word to shut out white people and Christians

from having a voice in our country.

I appreciate the question.

I think that what's happening, I think what Voti was referring to is, as you look back on this

movement, the first kind of rumblings of it were around 2017, 2018,

and Christian nationalism was a pejorative.

It was aimed to shut down dialogue.

And what was really meant by the use of the word Christian nationalism in 2017, 2018 was, quote -unquote,

white Christian nationalism.

Now, there is a version of Christian nationalism that is very ethnocentric.

I would even go so far as to say it is indeed racist.

And its aim is to advance the cause of the white man.

And they make no bones about that.

Truth be told, I appreciate the honesty of those who hold that view.

I'd prefer them come flat out and say, I'm a white Christian nationalist than cloud the

idea in, quote -unquote, Christian nationalism and still hold to those same ideas.

That said, I think what Voti was particularly in that instance referring to is that most of

the media, the news media, right, were using Christian

nationalism.

And what they really meant to say was white Christian nationalism.

And all of that was just in an effort to shut down dialogue.

And what has happened since then in the advent of George Floyd,

after wokeism has taken on such a big part of culture is this

response by those who are Christian, who are saying, if you're gonna say that I'm a

white Christian nationalist, or you're gonna use the term Christian nationalist as a pejorative, I'm gonna wear it as

a badge of honor and I'm gonna use it for my own purposes.

I think that's a mistaken idea.

I think that is problematic on numerous fronts.

But regardless of what I think, those who are even in evangelical circles, those who are in conservative

Christian circles are saying, I'm gonna take the term that they meant to be bad, I'm gonna take it, dust

it off and wear it.

And my response to that would simply be, let's pause before we cape up with a

label and think through what we're actually putting on and wearing.

Again, those who embrace the social justice movement were Christians who

thought, I'm for justice, so why wouldn't I be for social justice?

Or I'm for the fact that lives matter, so why wouldn't black lives matter?

And what they began to find is, as they began to embrace these ideas given to them by the culture,

they had problems associated with them.

My argument is that this Christian nationalism, while on one end it sounds right, who

doesn't like to be Christian?

On the other end, hey, if by nationalist, you mean I think that America's the greatest country

that God ever created, then call me a Christian nationalist.

But we've got to pause and find out, do a deeper dive and ask the question, what is actually being meant

by nationalism?

What does it mean historically?

And should this be a moniker that we embrace just in an effort to

irritate folks that are on the left?

Well, thank you, Grady, and keep listening to Iron Shepherd Zion Radio and spreading the word about the

program there in Asheboro, North Carolina and beyond.

Look forward to seeing you at the G3 Conference in September.

We have Johnny from Queens, New York.

Virgil, if the condition to enforce the law of God as

normative cultural ethic as commanded by Christ is fulfilled by

regenerated biblical Christians, civil magistrates, and not by an unbelieving government, would

that be biblically reasonable?

And he quotes, and Jesus came and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in

heaven and on earth.

Go therefore and make disciples, teaching them to observe all things that I have

commanded you.

And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age, from Matthew chapter 28, verses 18

through 20.

Yeah.

No, I think that's a fair question.

I'd have no problem with that as a secondary outgrowth

of what's taking place in the hearts of believers.

And so our first and primary responsibility is to go, therefore, into the world,

right?

Preaching the gospel, proclaiming the truth of God, baptizing men in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey the commandments,

right?

And Christ commands that he would be with us always, even at the end of the age.

So I'd have no problem with our primary focus being one of

evangelism.

And as a result of that, seeing transformed hearts and lives.

And as a result of that, seeing those who have those transformed heart and lives desire to

function in every facet of government and the like, I would absolutely applaud that, cheer that

on before that.

That's exactly what I endeavor to do on a day -to -day basis.

And whenever government gets outside the bounds of what's right, moral, good, holy, I think the

church and those of us who are believers have a responsibility to have a prophetic voice and to declare that

truth to the state, to government.

What I'm not in favor of is the idea that our primary mission as believers is to ensure

that we have a quote -unquote Christian nation from the top down.

That's what I don't advocate.

So then judging from what you said, if you were to observe

some country in Europe, they elect a leader or

leaders that are Bible -believing Christians.

From everything that you can see and hear, you have confidence these are

actually regenerate people who are faithfully following the word of Christ.

And they publicly pronounce that they

are now a Christian nation.

And you see as time progresses that they're actually living that

out truthfully.

They are not persecuting people of other ecclesiastical groups than the one they

personally possess.

In fact, perhaps the leadership is comprised of people from Baptist and

Presbyterian and Anglican and Lutheran groups or what have you.

You would be not crying out for the dismantling of this nation as it existed as a Christian nation,

would you?

If by Christian nation what they intended was something in

addition to the system and structure we have in place now where there's fierce sovereignty,

where the state is not attempting to come into the realm of the church.

And now as a quote unquote Christian nation, tell the church that we have a

crisis called COVID.

And as a result, we are indeed a Christian nation.

And as a Christian ruler who loves Christ, I'm telling the church that the church must now

close its doors.

And we do that in the name of our Christian nation.

I think we have problems.

So I wanna always pump the brakes when we desire the

idea rather than the reality.

In other words, many times we wanna hear someone say, I'm a quote unquote

Christian nation.

You mentioned Bodhi earlier.

Bodhi talked about where he is in Africa and that the nation that he's in

on their constitution, they have the fact that they're a Christian nation.

It's stated, it's clear, it's titled, everyone knows it.

And that most of the people in the country would much rather have the practical implications of

that Christianity permeated throughout their culture more so than just the title

on a constitutional framework.

And I agree with him.

I'm more concerned that each and every individual lives out a life that is reflective

of the gospel of Christ permeating their heart, that they invest in laws

within the sphere of their sovereignty, that honor God, that point to God, that enable us to

have freedom of speech.

I'm more concerned with that from a standpoint of its practice than I am concerned that on

some billboard somewhere or on some document

somewhere, we just watched the coronation of the King of England.

If you watch the coronation, the church and the state were combined.

You know, the king is a Christian king and he's got

all the vestments of that.

And so we can get caught up in titles, names, and imagery.

What's more important is the true conversion of the heart and that it has impact on culture

from the inside out.

Yeah, in fact, that is a glowing example that if a nation

were to become identified as a Christian nation, there's gonna be no

guarantee that the progeny of those in leadership of this Christian nation, those that

are elected into the office in the future are going to be regenerate.

And even if they carry on in perpetuity until Christ returns

the identity of a Christian nation like England

has, today, it's a farce because even when you had,

from what I have heard from people who know better than I do, especially those who are from the UK,

the people that I know and respect who knew anything about Queen Elizabeth were very

confident, if not certain, that she was a genuine born -again Bible -believing woman.

Even though she was the queen, you have England being a theological sewer.

I mean, you have mosques rising up at a far greater

speed and frequency than Christian churches and you have Christian churches

being used by Muslims and you have sodomy and all of the most

scandalous and damnable evils prohibited by the scripture

reigning over there.

So, I mean, the fact that they would call themselves a Christian nation and go through the pomp and ceremony of it is really

meaningless today in the 21st century.

Absolutely, absolutely.

It's something that we need to stop and think about.

I get the idea of wanting the reactionary response to

wokeism being codified into law.

I get that.

I totally get that our natural response is to push back and say, well, if they can do that, then we can do this.

I totally get and understand that.

But we have a kingdom, which is Christ, and we have a responsibility to represent it.

And the way that we do is through gospel proclamation, inside out, bottom up, rather

than this dictatorial top -down imposing of the idea of

Christian nationalism or the idea of a Christian nation and name and title

for what purpose and ends, I don't know.

Again, there are great thinkers who have thought through these issues.

My goal is not to simply say that there's not a place for those who

want to embrace Christian nationalism, that there's no place for them in the body of Christ.

That's not the point I'm making.

I'm simply saying that before we all cape up and embrace this idea as our

primary effort, energy, and goal, that we pump the brakes, take some time,

examine definitions, and look to see if, biblically speaking, there's an

example in scripture that we can point to that shows us that our primary objective

is to create a Christian nation.

I'm gonna read a listener question and have you answer it when we return from our final break.

It's amazing how fast the time has gone.

I think this may demand a part two.

I don't know if you agree with me, but I would love to have you back.

We have Cindy in Findlay, Ohio.

Good evening, Virgil and Chris.

I am not well -versed in Christian nationalism or theonomy, but from what little I know, it

seems as though theonomists would be the most avid proponents of Christian nationalism.

How far off am I?

Did you hear that, Virgil?

I did, I did.

I didn't know if you wanted me to answer that after the break.

Oh, that's right.

I am 61 and I'm forgetting what I just said seconds ago.

We'll be right back with your answer to that right after these messages, so don't go away, folks.

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We're now back with Virgil Walker.

And Virgil, let me reread the question that our listener asked,

Cindy in Findlay, Ohio.

She says, it seems as though theonomists would be the most avid proponents

of Christian nationalism.

How far off am I?

I think she's right.

I'll say this.

Right now, as it pertains to the Christian nationalist movement, those who are

embracing the ideas of Christian nationalism, most of them are theonomists.

But at the same time, there are those who are theonomists who don't

embrace that moniker and would much rather stand firm with

their theological convictions about the matter.

And so you have Doug Wilson, for example, who's written a book called Mere Christendom.

And in the book, he walks through his theological framework, which

it's a lane.

It's an idea that he's stood on for decades.

So while Christian nationalism is a new iteration of

this idea, theonomy is not.

Theonomy has been around for a long time.

And I think those who really want to embrace it from a theological standpoint

do so and have done so well.

It's just been in this last three to five years.

And I primarily attribute the Christian nationalism movement to a

reaction to wokeism, and rightfully so in many

instances.

But it's more of a reactionary movement in my estimation rather than one that has had

a long history of convictions based upon scripture and the like.

So I would differentiate some of my brothers, the guys who, the

Jeff Durbin's of the world, the guys who, the chocolate Knox's of the world,

our dear friends in Moscow.

Some of those guys are theonomists, have been post -mill and their eschatology

for decades have been advancing their cause in such ways.

Those who are embracing Christian nationalism are looking for more of a top -down

governmental approach to what they're trying to advance.

And so that's where I think even those on the side of theonomy would

differ on that one point.

Well, it's interesting, I've had Doug Wilson on my show and he has shocked

many in my audience because he denies being a theonomist.

I think it may be a matter of semantics with him.

Then sometimes he will also say that he's a, I think he says a Westminster theonomist or something

like that, a Westminster Confession theonomist.

But he does not want to identify himself with the broader

movement of theonomy.

But somebody who has recently become a theonomist, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, a mutual friend of ours,

he is vociferously in disagreement with Stephen Wolf's book.

So he, whether or not he ever calls himself a Christian nationalist, he certainly is not

identifying with that brand of it.

Yeah, there's some real problems with Stephen Wolf's book.

And I outlined those in greater detail in the article that I penned,

which I would encourage many to go check out.

It's on the G3 Ministries website, g3men .org.

It's called The Dangerous Intersection of Christian Nationalism and

Ethnocentrism.

And so if you have time, go by g3men .org, check out the blog.

You could either type in Dangerous Intersection of Christian Nationalism or type in my name.

And the article, I read it to a listener or they can read it

for themselves.

So you can listen or read the article at your leisure.

We have an anonymous listener, the last one we have time for a question from.

Anonymous listener says, I feel myself becoming more and more inclined to embracing

a form of Christian nationalism.

And I was just wondering what your thoughts are on this.

The most impressive explanation to the situation at hand regarding Christian

nationalism that I have heard is that everyone is a theological or

religious nationalist.

And your choice is boiling down to either being a Christian nationalist or letting the pagans

run this world with their religion as much as they declare that they are not

theonomists or believing in a theocracy.

Those in the left do have a religion of their own in spite of what they call it.

What is your opinion on that?

Sure, I think there are a lot of people who desire to attach themselves to

movements like this and to connect with tribes.

Everybody wants to be connected to something.

And movements like this have great appeal.

And so my movement is the movement of Christ.

His movement has not changed, has not shifted, doesn't need a new title.

I'm a believer in Christ.

The things that I stand for, I've been standing for since I came into a saving

knowledge of Jesus Christ.

I'll stand for those things for a long time thereafter.

I'm not concerned with what title you give me.

I'm concerned about truth.

I'm concerned about professing it, proclaiming it.

And I think anyone who knows me or the ministries that I've been connected with, while I've never embraced

a term like Christian nationalism, they would definitely recognize that I do stand for the cause

and sacred Christ yesterday, today, and will continue to as long as the Lord gives me breath

in my lungs, I'll vote in ways that honor God.

I'll speak to civil magistrates in ways that proclaim the truths of God.

I'll speak to political parties in the same way.

I don't need to identify myself with an organization or a group of people who are still trying

to figure out their own definitions while they're doing that and trying to look for that and figure those pieces out.

I'll continue doing what I've always done, which is stand for the cause and sacred Christ and proclaim the gospel.

Don't forget, folks, to register for the G3 Conference coming up September 21st through

the 23rd in Atlanta, Georgia.

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There will be at least 30 speakers on the roster.

Go to g3min .org, g3min .org.

And please, when registering, use promo code G3ISIR,

G3ISIR, which stands for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, G3ISIR.

Thank you so much, Virgil, for doing such a superb job as you always do.

I want to thank all of our listeners, especially those who took the time to write.

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater savior than you are a

sinner.