Continuing on my theme on the need to protect the inner core people of the polity from the outer periphery immigrants and others residents, I would like discuss how a Christian nationalist polity, unless they are really going to create a monolithic village, will inevitably need to become something like an empire anyway.
In a video some time back Wolfe gave a definition of Christian Nationalism as follows: Christian nationalism refers to a people who are self-conscious of themselves as a nation and as a Christian people, ordering the nation towards heavenly ends. Thus, there is a collective "we" who is self-conscious of themselves as a Christian people of a particular nation.
On first brush there is actually a very strong resemblance between Wolfe's conception and John Stuart Mill's conception in the phenomenological "self-conscious" approach. Mill's "Considerations on Representative Government" defines the nation thus:
//A portion of mankind may be said to constitute a nationality if they are united among themselves by common sympathies which do not exist between them and any others—which make them co-operate with each other more willingly than with other people, desire to be under the same government, and desire that it should be government by themselves, or a portion of themselves, exclusively.//
Thus there is a "common sympathy", a self-consciousness or feeling, of themselves as themselves, to the exclusion of others, which consciousness makes them want to "order" themselves via the establishment of a common government for themselves.
The problem however with this phenomenological approach, especially when understood to refer to a people self-conscious of themselves as a Christian people, would be: well, what is the state of the Mohammedans, Jews, or deists, etc? Can they use the collective pronoun of "We, Americans", if they do not self-consciously think of themselves as constituents of a Christian people? It seems that, by definition, non-Christians cannot be part of a Christian American nation since non-Christians cannot self-consciously think of themselves as a Christian people seeking Christian salvic ends.
I want to be clear that I am not asking the trivial question of, are you going to criminalise those who deny the Christian faith. Wolfe is clear that in the American tradition there would be broad religious toleration, so he does not envision sending Mohammedans or Jews to concentration camps. I am asking a different question of what status within the Christian body politic would Mohammedans and Jews have? Would they be permanent residents but not citizens? Would they be something analogous to "a client people", not having a share in the governance of the nation, but enjoying certain privileges and immunities by the good graces of the American people?
A two tiered approach however would, from the outset, mean that Wolfe's conception cannot work with a democracy. The nation would presumably be populated and inhabited by a number of non-Christians who do not think of themselves as part of the "We, Christian People of America". As far as I can see, there are only two models which is compatible with Wolfe's conception:
(1) A Christian monarchy where it is sufficient for the King himself to self-consciously think of himself as a Christian ruler, governing a Christian kingdom (not nation) ordered towards supernatural heavenly objectives, while extending the blessings, graces, and tolerance of his Christian kingdom and laws to other subjects of his, enjoying royal benefits by his good graces and mercies for not converting to Christianity. Thus, there is no need for a democratic "we", there is only one "we", the Royal "We", who with perhaps his nobility and government, alone needs to be self-conscious of themselves as a Christian government ruling over a Christian kingdom, and the King will have his Christian subjects, his "core people" and himself as their "father", and then many other non-Christian subjects, recipients of his grace.
(2) Then there is obviously model of Imperial Rome. There is a core Republic, Rome itself, the first among equal of nations so to speak, and then there are many other client states and cities. While a Jew like St Paul can attain citizenship, but he would still be precluded from certain very high offices within the Roman Empire.
In both cases there must necessarily be a hierarchy of status within the Body Politic itself, between the "core" Christian people who can think of themselves as a Christian people, ordering the government and public institutions of the nation towards Christian ends, and then a client/subject people who are not part of the "We" of the American Christian nation, but somehow enjoying some privileges or protection derived from the will and good graces of the core people.
But clearly, on Wolfe's conception, a phenomenological approach to defining nationalism would necessarily entail a nation composed only of Christians.