“The Faith is Europe and Europe is the Faith.” – Hilaire Belloc
When Belloc says that “the Faith is Europe and Europe is the Faith,” he is correct. This does not mean that Christianity is solely for Europeans or that being a European de facto makes one a Christian. This is a simple acknowledgement that God’s sovereign intervention in Acts 16, turning Paul west into Europe instead of allowing him to continue his eastern ministry in Asia, has had the profoundest of effects on the character of Europe and Christianity. Excepting the last century, for the last one thousand years, Christendom was Europe and to be European was to be Christian, if not by personal faith, then at least by living in a culture so saturated by Christianity as to make living by Christian norms unavoidable. In some southern areas of Europe, this goes back almost two thousand years. This was such an engrained reality that the borders of Europe and Christianity in 1492 were identical. What is geographically considered the continent of Europe is merely a map of the homelands of every White European people and where every person who believed in the dual nature of Christ in 1492 lived (Monophysitism is considered heresy). That is how foundational Christianity is to Europe and Europeans: for dozens upon dozens of generations, the two groups were basically synonymous.
It is from this context that we must approach the topic of white nationalism and religion. First of all, what is white nationalism? Simply defined, white nationalism is the belief that the European race has both the right and duty towards self-determination, genetic preservation, and territorial integrity. In other words, the white people can and should govern themselves, maintain their own distinct cultures, control their collective destiny, marry and adopt only other whites, limit immigration to whites only, maintain boundaries from other racial groups, and have ownership claims on all European-built and -inhabited countries. Alienists love to play word games to confuse the real issues at hand. One of their favorites is the mantra “white isn’t a race.” This is of course correct, but it is also an obvious strawman. No one thinks that skin color equals race; “white” is merely a convenient euphemism for “European” since Europeans are light-skinned and hundreds of millions of them no longer live in Europe. The category “white” doesn’t even include all light-skinned people, either, since there are lighter-skinned people who aren’t European. It’s merely shorthand to make conversation easier. And they know this; you’ll never catch them saying “black isn’t a race,” because that would be “racist.” Only white identity can be attacked.
Now that we’ve defined white, let’s go back to the definition of white nationalism. You’ll note from the definition that “white nationalism,” like “Christian” or “Republican” or “capitalist,” is an umbrella term for a wide range of different views that, while agreeing on a few main points, may disagree on everything else. White nationalism runs the entire spectrum from more mainstream white-rights people like Pat Buchanan to the hardcore white supremacist fringe people like the Aryan Nations, and everything in between. Of the whole host of disagreements ranging from economic to political to cultural issues amongst the different white nationalist groups, the issue of religion is probably the most divisive.
This is because white nationalist groups run the entire spectrum, including atheist/agnostic, neo-pagan, Christian Identity, traditional Christian, and mixed groups not taking a stance on religion at all except “don’t talk about it, because it starts arguments.” Our stance is, of course, Kinism. To be a Kinist is first to be a traditional Christian and then to let Christianity inform every area of life, including what nations are and should be. This leads to the biblical doctrine of ethnonationalism. Biblical ethnonationalism is a universal principle, applicable to all peoples; however, for white Kinists, our ethnonationalism falls within the category of white nationalism by definition. So from the first, our position has always been that Christianity made Europe what it was, that Europe was Christendom for the last couple of millennia, and that any European political renewal must come hand-in-hand with a Christian revival to be permanent and successful in the long run. Other white nationalists disagree. Earlier this month, Gregory Hood posted an article over at Counter-Currents entitled, “Why Christianity Can’t Save Us“:
Christianity itself is complicit in the “leveling” process. As Alain de Benoist has described in On Being a Pagan, creation in the Christian conception is an alienating process, as consciousness and the divine is held to be outside a fallen world. As de Benoist describes, Christianity and monotheism generally paves the way for atheism by desacralizing the world. The result is plagued with a hatred for the world as it is, a world-denying impulse that naturally lends itself to messianic liberalism to make the fallen world fit with the divine order. Eric Vogelian termed this attempt to bring heaven to Earth as the impulse to “Immanentize the Eschaton.”
And of course, that divine order is, at its heart, egalitarian. Though Christianity properly understood does not demand egalitarianism, racial suicide, or messianic liberalism, the central doctrines of the cult of the cross make this evolution natural. Like acid, Christianity burns through ties of kinship and blood – as Christ states “He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” The Apostle Paul tells us, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” . . .
For any who accept “justification by faith,” salvation or damnation is conferred by an abstract individual choice as to whether one accepts Jesus Christ as his savior. Such a creed renders family, kin, and nation irrelevant, and encourages intellectual stagnation so as not to endanger the souls of the believer. The most Bible-believing Christians, modern evangelical Protestants, are gradually transforming Christianity into its true form, a cult of egalitarian true believers, with the special “Chosen People” serving as the sole exception. . . .
Christianity was the essential religious step in paving the way for decadent modernity and its toxic creeds. In fact, many of the faith’s leading spokespeople defend it for this reason – begging to be allowed to exist because it paved the way for “democracy” and “tolerance.” They are sure to be disappointed – egalitarians will allow no separate peace. Still, as in the past, Christianity will survive because of its role as a safety valve – and it will continue to modify itself to fit with the Zeitgeist. . . .
Thus, renewing Christian belief is unlikely to “save Western civilization.” If anything, it would facilitate the process of conservatives serving as priests of a dead God, guardians of the “West as a tomb” bereft of vitality and spiritual substance. The literate Christian missionaries of yesteryear may well have been a necessary step in advancing the social and technological development of Europe. However, the spiritual unity of what was once called “Christendom” existed even before the coming of Christ, in the dream of Rome and the unity of the Greeks against the barbarians. Europe as a cultural and racial unit existed before Christ, and we do not need Him to maintain it. What the “positive Christianity” of the past contributed to the West was as much a product of European folk tradition and spirituality as the creed of the Nazarene, and the latter is distilled down to its purest essence, Europe will not survive. If “Christendom” were reborn, the West would simply repeat its past mistake.
In reply, our good friend Matt Parrott took Mr. Hood to task for cherry-picking verses and twisting theology in his article, “Why We Should Save Christianity“:
Within Mr. Hood’s own article, he tries to have it both ways. Since there is no monolithic “Christian church,” there’s no proverbial door upon which to stick these charges. After congratulating Orthodox Christians abroad who are boldly pushing back against Modernity, he chuckles that “eventually they are going to start reading their Bibles.” Shortly thereafter, he informs us that “Westboro Baptists hold to a more authentic (and in some ways honorable) form of Christianity by truly believing what their Holy Book tells them, even in defiance of all the world.”
Is biblical literalism ridiculously hardcore, or a trojan horse carrying the liberal egalitarian universalist plague?
Is Christianity doomed because it’s integrally bad, or is Christianity doomed because it’s powerless against Modernity? Mr. Hood has established a rigged lose/lose framing in which everything Christianity has done right is vestigial paganism, everything it’s done wrong is integral to its nature, and everything that’s been done to it is its own fault. . . .
Christ’s message was indeed universal, and it was for all the nations of the world. Up until recently, it was intuitively obvious that his message would and should be embraced within the cultural contexts of those nations. The notion that Christianity is really all about imposing a Semitic global empire with a Semitic spirit and culture is only taken seriously now that the Pharisees–Christ’s foremost opponents during his ministry–stand at the brink of achieving precisely that. . . .
And why should we save Christianity? Because it’s the one true faith, that’s why! Setting eternal salvation aside for a moment, the Church has done more to preserve our pagan and Classical inheritance than any other institution. I propose that a Germanic (I prefer “Arthurian” . . . ) Christianity is more capable of upholding European folk tradition than the European folk traditionalists themselves. I believe it’s also more confluent with our geopolitical predicament, plugging us into an emergent nationalist Christian superpower alliance which could compete with the emerging East Asian and Islamic superpower alliances.
The path from where White Americans currently are to a restored Christianity worthy of restoring seems shorter and more direct to me than the line to a pagan revival.
Parrott’s sentiments were echoed in an article on Alternative Right by Cecilia Davenport entitled, “After the Darkness“:
Mr. Hood asserts that Christianity is a fundamentally egalitarian religion; and yet, throughout history, it has been a primarily aristocratic one. This is why the faith—hierarchical as it is—has struggled during democratic times (as Tocqueville pointed out in Democracy in America). Still, paganism is explicitly the enemy of democracy, which is why it is so attractive to many radical traditionalists.
The two Bible verses Mr. Hood cites in his article proclaim the primacy of the authority of God. But to use them as support for the assertion that “Christianity burns through ties of kinship and blood” is, at best, misguided, and at worst, disingenuous. Christianity commands man to honor authority and the right order of human things. If “Christianity burns through ties of kinship and blood,” what does one make of the commandment to honor one’s father and mother? Or to refrain from violating the bonds of matrimony? The verses to which Mr. Hood refers are in fact meant to emphasize the ultimate authority and kingship of God, not to undermine traditional institutions or natural hierarchies. . . .
In the 19th and 20th centuries, much of progressive and communist rhetoric was explicitly anti-religious and particularly anti-Christian. It was only nearer the end of the 20th century when clever men began to pick up on an ancient weapon: distortion. And, of course, the main symptom of the last man’s diseased malaise is “niceness.” If you reduce Christianity to mere “niceness,” then yes, let the pagans come. But there is nothing “nice” about true Christianity. . . .
Is modern Christianity largely deracinated? Yes. Has it been transformed into a useful tool by modern egalitarianism and global liberalism? Of course. Is this true Christianity? No. Of course not. And every sharp, aware traditionalist knows this. They know that the greatest epoch in history was the golden age of Christianity in Europe. It is the stupendous downfall of that civilization that tortured Henry Adams, and that tortures us. . . .
Does this mean that I am arguing for a third way, an alternative to neo-paganism and neo-Christianity? Well, in a sense, I suppose. But more to the point, I’m simply arguing for a return to the old way: to the Christianity of tradition and revelation which nourished and informed Western culture for nearly two millennia. To my mind, this is simply a return to a truer understanding of what it means to be human.
The gods of paganism are sheer fiction, but Christ is real. Men must believe in something outside themselves: let it be something true.
We here at Faith and Heritage will continue this discussion of white nationalism and religion via a new four part series by Nil Desperandum entitled “Christianity as a Necessary Foundation for White Nationalism,” which we will begin posting later this week.
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