Conservatism is merely a posture, it’s a response to change. A reluctance to allow innovation, modification or change. It happens to be the correct response in a lot of situations.
We should not change God’s word; we should conserve its authority and teachings. We need not remove the monarchy; we should conserve the proper hierarchy in society. We don’t need to “progress” marriage etc, etc; the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman deserves to be conserved.
Conserving is a good response in these situations, but not all. Our debt-based economic system needs radical change, for instance.
However, conservatism fails to present a vision for society. Any vision at all. It’s a response to suggestions or innovation, hence it is inherently reactive. It’s really just a default position, or preference, rather than a creative vision.
Christian Nationalism, in contrast, presents a vision of society and what it can be. A compelling vision of a nation lifting up Christ as Lord. A nation having its laws informed by the Word of God. Christian Nationalists are not naive enough to think that all people in a Christian society are actual Christians. Not even all of Jesus’ disciples were believers. We have no false pretensions about such things.
But it gives us a vision to push towards, and, ironically it conserves better than conservatism. Conservatism has no basis for conserving anything. It is just biased towards what it currently is. But Christian Nationalism (CN) does.
There’s no natural basis for preserving a one-woman one-man marriage. Nature presents every sexual perversion possible. Only Christianity mandates and preserves “traditional” marriage. It presents a vision of marriage to work towards, that people can bring up in their minds, and that society can work towards affirming with marriage positive laws and privileges. Â
Only CN presents a compelling reason to honour the family; it is decreed by God and practical. Only CN presents a good reason to preserve authority and institutions; they are given by God. Only CN can provide a reason for limited government; the government should stay in its place and not encroach on the sphere of the family or the Church. Only CN presents a good reason to preserve Gender; it is inherently decreed by God. Only CN presents a reason to preserve society; because it is God’s ordained community for humanity to live in.
Other philosophies can’t even justify the right for society to exist, environmentalism being a key example. Christian Nationalism gives us a very clear image of all of these things, and a motivation to preserve them once they have been achieved. It gives a solid foundation for a society to build upon.
Christian Conservatives may agree and even support all these things. But conservatives are not inherently Christians and different conservatives are prone to reacting differently to different changes. An atheist, a family man, with a conservative disposition, may agree with conserving some aspects of society, he may even stand beside the Christian conservative in opposing something like abortion, or same-sex marriage. But he does not have a vision of a good to work towards that comes from outside himself. He does what is right in his own eyes.Â
If we want to change society for good we need a compelling vision. Only Christian Nationalism gives a compelling answer to modern progressivism and its relentless pursuit of Marxist (really Satanic) goals. Christians don’t even need to agree on what denomination’s perspective to move towards. All give a compelling vision that is superior to conservatism. And the faith of the nation will guide which expressions become more influential, as they did in the past. Â
This is why Christian Nationalism creates such a reaction with so many of its opponents. They can see the vision, or at least a caricature of it, as clearly as its advocates and it frightens them. It overturns most of the modern values killing our society, it challenges entrenched power structures, it even presents an alternative vision for how money and debt should be handled in a nation. Whereas conservatism barely registers a response, as it is toothless.
Give people a good to work towards and you’ll bring much of society along.