Though Christian Nationalism does have plenty of material that lands on the green, there are also concepts in which its ideas land in the rough. These are areas where, even among those who have broad agreement with this political theory, there will be disagreement. Last installment the ball had rolled into the rough. General disagreement about the basic approach of the relationship of church and state leads to disputes over the particulars of the responsibility of the civil magistrate. Below are some examples of instances where the Reformed idea that the moral law should be used to curtail sin causes proponents of that doctrine to bump heads. Included is my assessment of these ideas which will further serve to demonstrate what is being suggested: that there is disagreement about how to implement the theory proposed by Christian Nationalism. I expect that some who read my assessment will disagree, perhaps even strongly. On to the specific examples.
First, the law requires that man have no other gods before the Lord.[1] That, in itself, is not complicated. The God of Scripture is the only God and He will allow none to rob Him of His glory. But to translate that specific command to the context of national laws is difficult or at least controversial. There is the ideal of where the Christian might desires things to be, but there is also the current cultural climate. That is not to say that pragmatism is the name of the game. However, in the United States laws would have to be changed before anything that looks remotely like that could even be proposed as legislation. Though my personal opinion is that the Christian religion should be preferred in the ideal, it is clear that Christian brothers and sisters who oppose that view have many valid concerns and criticism that flow either from a different approach to ordering civil life, or from reservations of what to do in a society that is not at all monolithic and has allowed people from many different religions to make their homes in this land. Especially the question about implementation in the current cultural context is important. It is one thing to assert that Christianity should be preferred. It is another to have a clear vision of how to get from religious pluralism to that place. For that reasons, the ideal of Christian preference should be held fairly lightly, because it is so far from being a reality.
Second, the third commandment prevents blasphemy against God. A Reformed understanding of the civil use of the law would at the very least leave room for blasphemy laws. Not every Reformed thinker agrees on this point. For example, in the March 21, 2024 Presbycast debate on Christian Nationalism, Dr. D. G. Hart stated, “I think Stephen Wolff’s book could be used to support suppression of free speech, which could penalize a lot of bad stuff that I don’t like. But it could also penalize a lot of Christian stuff, which is happening.”[2] Dr. Hart makes the argument that the magistrate preferring the Christian religion by curbing things like blasphemy and false religion would curb free speech and thereby attack the first amendment in the United States. In my opinion, that argument is poor.
In dealing with the ideals of a society, the Christian’s appeal is not to the Constitution of the United States, but rather the word of God. However, beyond that, the principle of free speech is not predicated on everyone being allowed to say all things in all places. For example, there is an existing practice of limiting profanity and blasphemy based on age. There is a rating system in place for entertainment that classifies media according to content. Things like profanity, blasphemy, sexual content and other factors all influence the final rating. Why? Because it is recognized that exposing young people to prophane language and other things is not good, and therefore it is regulated. Blasphemy laws simply argue that it is never appropriate for anyone to hear the name of the Lord blasphemed.
Granted, the current cultural climate of the West would make enforcement of blasphemy laws all but impossible, but the civil use of the moral makes it clear that it is not wrong to have such laws. Personally I would favor them. Since man’s chief end is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever,”[3] and since heaven will only have people who do that perfectly, it seems right to orient people toward that heavenly reality in a society as well.
Third, and closely related, is what should be done with the seventh commandment in society. This issue is essentially the other side of the same coin. The question is how much the civil magistrate should interfere in the area of human sexuality. Sin always brings about pain and destruction, and that is perhaps especially true of sexual sin. That is evident in the fallout of pornography, fornication, divorce, single-parent families, homosexuality, and a host of other sins against the seventh commandment. I believe the civil magistrate should prevent such harm to come to the society it has been appointed to govern. Should pornography be illegal? It seems a “no-brainer” to me. Absolutely. It is simply digital prostitution. Is it right to limit such behavior by law? In my opinion it certainly is.
How many men in the Internet age have external controls so that they not have access to pornographic material that would harm or even destroy their marriage? Services like Qustodio or Covenant Eyes are in place to act as guiderails and to restrain sin in men. If the magistrate is to restrain evil, the civil use of the law would suggest that legislation prohibiting the evil of pornography would set the guardrails for the whole nation. Making pornography illegal would provide a default national internet filtering service and that would be good because it is a destructive sin.
Growing up before the age of the Internet, I simply did not have access to pornography in the same way. To obtain pornography required going to a store and asking a man behind the counter for material he and I both knew was sinful or at least not appropriate. That is why it was behind the counter. The embarrassment of such a transaction kept me from accessing such material. That is not to say there were no sexual sins during the 80s and 90s. The heart was not made clean by these restrictions, but they did restrain access to sin in society and thereby largely removed a destructive temptation. Pornography is a scourge. Not only are those in that industry exposed to tremendous damage, but marriages fail and are torn apart not simply by this sin but also by the others which are spawned from it. It would be right for the civil magistrate to restrain evil via legislation. It is harder to see how Christians might oppose this notion, and yet there are those who do so.
Fourth, there is the question of blue laws. What is the magistrate to do with the biblical command to “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy?”[4] Outside the Reformed Presbyterian tradition there is a fair amount of skepticism about the calls from Christian Nationalists to enforce the fourth commandment. For example, Wolfe had laid out a case for moral orientation in a Christian society, which includes an understanding of the centrality of Sabbath rest. “A Christian society that is for itself will distrust atheists, decry blasphemy, correct any dishonoring of Christ, orient life around the Sabbath, frown on and suppress moral deviancy, and repudiate neo-Anabaptist attempts to subvert a durable Christian social order.”[5] Wolfe clearly prioritizes the magistrate’s enforcement of the protection of the Sabbath as a day of rest. And this assertion is not well received by all Christians. For example, Pastor Tom Hicks reacts strongly against Wolfe’s suggestion.
Pastor Hicks recently gave an address on Christian Nationalism at Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary’s 2025 Covenant Conference. In this talk he is incredulous at even the possibility of such a series of laws, though it seems that Pastor Hicks draws some conclusions about Wolfe’s views that are not explicitly found in his own words. First he takes issue with the idea of Sabbath enforcement: “He also writes this, this is I think significant, we’ll see later, the civil government may engage in quote, the suppression of public blasphemy, heresy, and impious profanation. Then he says obliging Sabbath observance. Now he knows that the Sabbath and the scriptures is not just like the blue laws of the South, which says businesses have to close on Sunday.”[6] For Hicks, Wolfe is asserting something more than simply laws which oblige rest on the Lord’s Day. For him the mere mention of the word Sabbath expands the category from civil laws to corporate church worship. “Sabbath observance is to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. That means to worship corporately. And he’s saying to oblige Sabbath observance.”[7] This characterization becomes a major obstacle for Hicks.
From dealing only with Wolfe, Hicks expands his critique to the original 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith and its position which is much more comfortable with involvement from the civil magistrate in the dealings of the Church. And as he draws his conclusions, one of his concerns is that Sabbath laws, which Hicks believes by necessity are related to Christian worship, will weaken the Church. He states, “It (Sabbath Law) undermines religious liberty in society. And so it threatens the purity of the church. Think about this, when the civil government makes church attendance legally or financially advantageous, hypocrites will flock to the church, of course.”[8] Leaving aside whether Hicks has accurately presented Wolfe’s position, from his reaction is it clear that Hicks, pastor of First Baptist Church in Clinton, Louisiana, a Reformed Baptist congregation, is far from comfortable with this part of Christian Nationalism.
Hicks, fairly, links Wolfe’s views more closely to the 1647 version of the Confession. However, even after the American revisions in 1788, the Confession still teaches about the universal aspect of the Moral Law. Therefore the obligation to Sabbath keeping in society is not changed between versions. In reformed theology, God’s law requires the Sabbath day to be remembered. The Jewish Sabbath, celebrated on today’s Saturday, has been replaced with the Lord’s Day, celebrated on today’s Sunday. In the 17th century, the Westminster Divines explained that shift as follows:
In his Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, He hath particularly appointed one day in seven, for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto Him: which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which, in Scripture, is called the Lord’s Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath.[9]
Notice the emphasis on “all men in all ages” which assumes validity of the civil use of the law in these instances. Christian Nationalism rightly challenges the Christian to think about what that means when it comes to the civil use of the law with regard to the fourth commandment.
A clear case could be made for the negative impact of the neglect of the Lord’s Day to the health of the United States. And that, again, would be in line with what the Westminster Standards teach. When asked why the Lord calls His people to remember the Sabbath, the answer comes back: “The word Remember is set in the beginning of the fourth commandment … (because) Satan with his instruments much labor to blot out the glory, and even the memory of it, to bring in all irreligion and impiety.”[10] The Larger Catechism is saying that neglecting the Sabbath paves the way for the neglect of worship and holiness as a whole. Both of those neglects are bad for any people. And yet even within my own denomination, the PCA, there are many ministers who disagree with this statement in our Standards and ask to be allowed to hold a stated difference, or exception, to this section of the Confession. Not only is there not agreement about what should be done in the world regarding the Sabbath, there is not even agreement about what should be done with it among God’s people.
There is one more common flashpoint of conflict in the philosophy of Christian Nationalism: the state church. This topic deserves its own installment and that will come next.
Pastor Geoff Gleason
Cliffwood Presbyterian Church
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[1] Exodus 20:3.
[2] Presbycast, “Continuing the Debate: Church & State,” YouTube video, accessed December 8, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnOV-QdRoCM,starting at 1:07:56.
[3] Westminster Shorter Catechism, #1.
[4] Exodus 20:8.
[5] Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism, (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2022), 240-241.
[6] Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary, “Christian Nationalism | Tom Hicks #CovCon’25,” featuring Rev. Tom Hicks, YouTube video, accessed December 8, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6hT6hIrPl8. Starting at 9:30.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid., at the 13:00 mark.
[9] Westminster Confession of Faith, 21.7.
[10] Westminster Larger Catechism, #121.
