Twitter user Jay the Baptist writes that Walker’s description of a “static and homogeneous culture” is actually “the desired end state of people who are pushing so-called [C]hristian nationalism here in the U.S.” He adds: “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature—a society ordered alongside of their ideals (typically similar to the lost cause of pre-Civil War Southern culture)—the subservience of women to men, the subservience of minorities to their masters and themselves at the top.”
Others push back against Walker. Self-described “friendly neighborhood Christian Nationalist” Rett Copple asks: “Dr. Walker, do you think you would be a Christian today if not for the Christian West you have called a failure here? Are the genuine saints of previous generations in error because the church they helped establish has [apostatized] in our day?”
Walker responds: “I’m not calling the Christian West a failure. I love the West, my nation, and the influence of Christianity upon both. I’m saying that particular iterations of ecclesial-civil arrangements have not produced good fruit that I wish to see repeated.”
Will Grapperhaus, a Baptist pastor in Alabama, responds that the Christian nationalism “being put forth today is not in any way advocating for an official state religion. It’s really not that difficult. As Christians, we are salt and light that is to come in contact with everything we come in contact with, including the public square, including public policy.”
Author and ethics professor Daniel Strand, who writes about Christian realism, asks: “But is the established Church in Europe THE reason [Christian nationalism isn’t] working? You could make that argument but you’re just assuming it’s true. I don’t think it is.”
Walker answers: “I would never say it’s the exclusive reason, but the fact that Anglican clergy of the *established church* is going all in for LGBT is probably not irrelevant, no?” He adds that Christian nationalism’s “whole argument is that establishment is a bulwark against civil unrighteousness. So not only does it not work externally, it actually makes the church internally complicit in cultural demise.”
