When I was in the eighth grade, the last grade of middle school in the Canadian education system, my history class gave out a creative project which served as our year-end culminative assignment. My classmates and I were handed a paper. On the top of that paper was the word “Kirthundia.” And according to the assignment, we were to take on the imaginary role of prime minister of the imaginary nation called “Kirthundia.” As prime minister, our task was to write and deliver a speech before the class concerning both the current state and the future of the nation. Each person’s speech would be different from the other’s. At the surface, it may not have seemed all that peculiar, but the context in which we were to assume the role was where things got interesting: 
Kirthundia was a Christian, parliamentary republic. The majority of its population was Christian. But with a booming economy, and a shortage of Kirthundian workers, the nation was forced to open its doors to foreign workers and their families, which inevitably altered Kirthundia’s religious composition. Immigrants from all over the world were arriving with their skillsets to contribute towards Kirthundian society, and with them came their respective religious convictions. Some were Hindu, some were Muslim, some were Buddhist, and some were Sikh, etc., and this prompted questions amongst the populace concerning the future development of the nation. Looking back now, I can identify some similarities between Kirthundia and Canada, though Canada is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy.
Canada was once a “Christian” nation, in the sense that the majority of its population was Christian, and its political and juridical institutions acknowledged God as its sovereign head. Canada was also, as part of the English Commonwealth, subject to the Solemn League and Covenant. For those unfamiliar with the Solemn League and Covenant, I recommend you read Michael Wagner’s The Anglosphere’s Broken Covenant published by Cántaro Publications. What I had failed to realize at the time was that the intention of the assignment was to direct us towards the vision of secularization as a response to the growing pluralism of the nation, something of which we were already familiar with given our Canadian context. However, as a young, evangelical Christian, I was altogether naïve to what the assignment had intended to accomplish, and I decided to take Kirthundia in a different, unexpected direction that caught my teacher by surprise. I wrote my paper with as much care as an eighth grader possibly could, attempting to grasp the implications of a growing pluralist nation-state, and having been the first to complete the paper, I volunteered to be the first presenter.
It would have been nice to have kept that paper, but unfortunately, it has been long lost to the wastepaper basket. But from what I could remember, I had written that, while Kirthundia would pledge to be hospitable to all foreign workers and immigrants, and swear to uphold the freedom of religion of every person, embodying Judeao-Christian values, Kirthundia would nonetheless remain a “Christian” nation under God, as its founders had intended. This would be reflected in its constitution, and by its respective governing bodies. You have to understand that, at this point in time, I had never yet heard of the likes of Abraham Kuyper, R.J. Rushdoony, Greg L. Bahnsen, Tom Ascol, etc. I was unfamiliar with the terms “theonomy”, “reconstructionism”, and “Christian Nationalism”, terms that are often thrown out there whenever Christianity and the idea of nation building intersect, and terms which are often meant in a pejorative manner.[1] I was so young in the faith, so green, that I did not even know about reformed doctrine. I was a young, dispensationalist Arminian at the time, one who sorely needed a proper biblical, theological (re)formation. But the idea of the Christian faith stretching beyond the four walls of the church, the notion that God’s revealed truth should inform and guide us as to how we operate in the public sphere, and that it actually said something, albeit indirectly, about the public sphere, made my heart skip a beat. I was presupposing the Lordship of Christ over all things before I had even understood it. I was discovering, as you would expect of one new in the faith, that my faith was more than what the public culture had portrayed it as. I had initially bought into the idea, as most Christian youth had, that our faith was nothing more than personal, spiritual piety, irrelevant to public life, irrelevant to politics, law, education, economics, etc. This school assignment, though it had been intended to cement that caricature, accomplished the opposite; it gave me, for the first time, an understanding that Christianity is a world-and-life view, and I had arrived at that rudimentary understanding having applied what little I had learned from Scripture. It makes one wonder how many Christian youth today have bought into the idea that Christianity is nothing more than a private spiritual belief, it would explain why they are so often “checked out” when it comes to matters of the faith.
What Kind of “Christianity” Are We Portraying?
The graduation evacuation is still happening, a large swath of youth continues to leave the church upon reaching University and College, and while we can analyze – and over analyze – why that may be, it should alert us to two things: 1) This is a mission field that we too often neglect. Just because our teenage sons and daughters attend church does not mean that they are believers, we cannot presume saving faith if they themselves have not made a public confession of the faith and demonstrated fruits of repentance and regeneration. And 2) just how biblical a witness are we providing to our youth? Are we reducing the gospel to its core soteriological kernel? Are we only talking about our salvation and the hope for the return of Christ and not about how our faith relates to our everyday life, and what God calls us to do as part of His grand redemptive project?
I was once asked by a Christian apologetic organization to put together a one-week worldview summer camp, it was called the Worldview Leadership League. You cannot imagine how many youth came in that week totally “checked out” of the faith. They were more excited about the recreational activities we had planned than the actual training they would receive from world-class speakers and educators. But by the end of the week, they all left with their eyes wide open, their hearts centered on Christ, and their lives willfully, passionately, geared towards advancing God’s kingdom in every sphere of life. The concept of Christianity being a worldview was mind-blowing to them. It had never occurred to them that there was a Christian outlook for all of created reality. And not one that was superficial or anti-intellectual, but rather one that was just as profound, and intricate, and awe-inspiring as creation itself. And the very fact that God had called them to advance His kingdom, the fact that they could do that in their respective fields of study, in their respective future vocations, made them realize that they had some teeth in the game. What they did for the Lord, and for the sake of the gospel, mattered in the grand scheme of God’s redemptive plan for creation. They were not only proclaiming the soteriological aspect of the gospel (e.g., Matt. 4:17; John 3:16), they were advancing and developing a Christian outlook of all things, in the light of, and subject to the Lordship of Christ (1 Cor. 15:24-28). This is not just exciting for youth, by the way, it is just as exciting for believers of any age, because it opens our eyes to the significance of what we do, even what we might think are the most mundane of things (cleaning, cooking, driving, etc.). It was the apostle Paul who wrote: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31), and “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” (Col. 3:23-24).
The Notion of a Christendom 2.0
I had spent time reflecting this week on the relation of the Christian faith to nation building while I worked through Doug Wilson’s book Mere Christendom. And based on that book, as well as an interview between Wilson and James White on the same subject,[2] the proposal of a Christendom 2.0 caught my interest. Perhaps “interest” is putting it lightly. It may be more accurate to say that it reignited a passion, a passion to see the West willfully subject to God, honouring the (unrepealable) Solemn League and Covenant of 1643,[3] and flourishing as a result. Now, I know the reaction of some Christians, at this point, has been to raise alarm at the very mention of a newly envisioned “Christendom.” There seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to the idea that Christians might want to Christianize culture – as if that were to be a “bad” thing – but what is the alternative? Do we want to Islamify our culture? Or to Hinduize our culture? Even a “secular” culture is religious in nature. Culture, when properly understood, can be defined as the religion of the people externalized. And what we have witnessed, without fail, over the course of human history is that, whenever the biblical God is displaced as the central focus of man’s worship, something else (or someone else) inevitably takes His place. What makes us think that what we have now in the West is better than what we can envision in light of the gospel, prior to Christ’s return?
Most of the knee-jerk reactions from within Christian circles ultimately comes down to a misunderstanding of God’s kingdom – generally, a low and reduced view of the kingdom – as well as a misinterpretation of what Scripture teaches concerning the culmination of history, “eschatology” in other words. No doubt dispensationalists are among the first in line to raise the red flag, since the proposed notion of a Christendom 2.0 runs contrary to their mistaken, eschatological convictions. But those are matters to explore on another occasion. For now, however, consider Wilson’s witty response to the alarm bells that often sound amongst Christians, alarm bells that are prodded on by the ones who feel most threatened, those of our fallen world:
Why are we so afraid of theocracy? What might happen? Might we go on a rampage and kill 60 million babies? [In reference to today’s abortion industry]. Yeah, that would be bad. Better not risk it. Might we set up a surveillance state, with camera clusters pointed in every direction at all the intersections? Right — theocracies are terrible like that. The real reason why our current rulers want us to react violently whenever we hear the word theocracy is that petty gods are always jealous of their position, and dread any talk of a Lord who rose from the dead.[4]
Before one points and shouts “Theocracy!”, as if that were to be a bad thing, and as if theocracy were to be misconstrued as to be in conflict with a democratic system, one should first consider reading Wilson’s book and listening to what he has to say on the matter. We have allowed the world to dictate too much of what this term (theocracy) means, and how it might manifest, compared to what it actually means, and what it might actually look like.
What we first need to do is wrap our minds around the fact that the gospel is more than just the salvation, redemption, and renewal of the human soul, it stretches well beyond that, and extends towards our created, material world. To put it differently, God is not just into “soul-saving”. He is into salvaging the entirety of His creation. And what is most exciting is that He invites us to partake in its restoration. Take a moment to understand the implications: This is much grander in scale than just redeeming the “soul” of the human being, we are talking about the redemption of the whole of the human person, all his functions within the created domain. We are not Greek dualists, prizing or elevating the spiritual over the material, and for too long have we worn Greek dualist robes. No, we are Christians informed by biblical revelation, and the stakes are far greater when it comes to the redemption of the world than what we have traditionally been taught. Creation has not been written off for destruction, it is the inheritance of the Christ and of the saints, which is being redeemed and renewed by the power and the Spirit of God according to His good and perfect time and plan. How exactly will this be realized? How can the church, both in terms of the individuals it consists of and the institution itself, bring about this realization? Within the context of the Great Commission, of course (Matthew 28:18-20). How could it be done otherwise?
If this has piqued your interest as much as it has mine, get yourself a copy of Wilson’s Mere Christendom. And while you are it, Wagner’s The Anglosphere’s Broken Covenant as well. There is plenty of food for thought.
[1] See Voddie Baucham, Tom Ascol, and William Wolfe, “Founders Ministries: Christian Nationalism Panel”, Youtube. Accessed October 2, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lazVEhGl3lY/
[2] Doug Wilson and James White, “Christendom 2.0–Could It Work?”, Youtube. Accessed October 2, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmpDAY2iwfM/
[3] See Doug Wilson, “The Plodcast: Ep. 267: What Christian Nationalism Is Not”, Blog and MaBlog. Accessed October 2, 2023, https://dougwils.com/podcasts/plodcast/267-what-christian-nationalism-is-not.html/
[4] Back Cover of Doug Wilson, Mere Christendom (Moscow, ID.: Canon Press, 2023).