How should Christians approach their role in shaping society? Dr. Daniel Samms, VSA teacher, pastor, and author of Christian Federalism: The Founding Vision and Road Ahead, joins us to chat about the varied meanings of Christian nationalism, America’s Christian heritage, and the relationship between faith, politics, and public life.
If you’d like to explore Dr. Samms and his book more, click here: https://undergroundseminary.net/daniel-samms-christian-federalism
Episode Transcription
Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode.
Marlin Detweiler:
Hello again and welcome to another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us Dr. Daniel Sams. Daniel, welcome.
Dr. Daniel Samms:
Thanks. Great to be here, brother. I appreciate it.
Marlin Detweiler:
Now, for those of you that don’t know, and I’m sure some of you do. Daniel actually teaches for us, for Veritas and has been doing a remarkable job. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about. We’re here to talk about a topic that has become a bit controversial of late: Christian nationalism. But before we jump into that, Daniel, give us a little bit of background for yourself so that the reader excuse me so the listener will know some context, your personal circumstances, family, education and career.
Dr. Daniel Samms:
Sure. So I raised in West Virginia. I live in Ohio as a missionary to the Buckeyes. Got a beautiful wife who is a licensed counselor..
Marlin Detweiler:
We don’t like to date things, but I want you to know last Saturday was a real nail biter for the Ohio State football team.
Dr. Daniel Samms:
That’s true. We live in interesting times here in Ohio when it comes to our sports. But I have three wonderful children, two of them at Veritas. One special needs. And then I am primarily a pastor. Beyond that, I teach for Liberty University online and of course for Veritas Scholars Academy. And then my education most recently is from Liberty University. My PhD from there in theology and apologetics. So that’s a little bit about me.
Marlin Detweiler:
Well, jumping right in off that wonderful launching point that you set me up with your doctoral thesis was on Christian nationalism. So let’s start with maybe a simple question. Why did you choose that topic?
Dr. Daniel Samms:
Yeah. Well, I was noticing that the term was being used in various political discourse, and it concerned me because it sure sounded like they were referring to people like me, but in a very negative way.
I thought, well, this is interesting because my ears to the ground on theological topics, and yet I have no one that’s referring to themselves at this. This is, of course. Years ago. And so what I was able to do is say, let’s dig in and figure out where this is coming from. And what we noticed is it was sociologists that were essentially developing the term, at least in its modern use, to refer really to just historic Christianity.
And it was particularly troubling, as I realized that what they were doing is people that would have fit the definition were the same people that were saying, well, I don’t want to be that. That obviously sounds terrible. And so what I did is I did an analysis of the sociological critique against Christian political theologies to say, okay, the things that they’re scared of, we’re not that.
And but that’s yeah, that’s hearing myself be accused of something that I didn’t know what the word meant made me say, I probably should look into this.
Marlin Detweiler:
Well, let’s unpack that. What are the things that you find you and others are accused of that you’re not?
Dr. Daniel Samms:
That’s a good question. Well, the thing that was particularly intriguing because in the description, they begin by saying this is primarily in the book Taking America Back for God by Perry and Whitehead, I think it’s Andrew Perry and Samuel Whitehead. And they say that the two primary criteria for Christian nationalism are being Bible believing and politically conservative, so that covers most Christians.
But then they would say things like, well, and Christian nationalists are sexist. I’m like I don’t know Christians like this in my churches. But then they would explain, like, well, here’s what we define as sexist. If you are against abortion, well, then you want to control women’s bodies. That’s sexism. And I’m like, okay, well that’s a different way than what we would use that term.
But they don’t normally define it for everybody. They just say they’re sexist. We saw the same thing with xenophobia. They’re like, well, if you want to secure the border, it means you just hate people from other countries. And so you’re xenophobic. And we noticed that there were these kinds of languages being used kind of to see us as these utilitarian fascist people.
And I’m like, this is just not what people believe. And what we ended up doing is in the dissertation is kind of demonstrating that even the guys who call themselves Christian naturalists, by and large, are not genuine sexist and misogynists and racists there. In fact, quite the opposite of that.
Marlin Detweiler:
What would you offer as a healthy? I do understand we’re dealing with a term that is inflamed at the moment. It’s the idea of terminology. Christian nationalism is not well defined and it is emotionally charged. And those two things don’t work well together. I realize that, but what would you say is a healthy definition for Christian nationalism, coming from someone who is a Christian and politically conservative?
Dr. Daniel Samms:
Yeah. Well, I would say, given that we can’t avoid the term, of course we’re going to get called it. So I think you’re right that we need to have a good definition. And I would say the simplest thing is to acknowledge, much like Voddie Baucham or Douglas Wilson have, that we live in a nation and Jesus is king.
And so if I’m a Christian and he really is Lord, if I’m affirming Matthew 28 and so forth, then I’m going to say, okay, in the very broad sense, I live in a nation. I’m not going to deny that. And I love my nation and Jesus’s king over it. And I would say owning that definition, using the term for that definition allows us to be very clear on where we stand from a Christian perspective, without associating it ourselves with something that we don’t want to be associated with. So I would say that’s where I would go.
Marlin Detweiler:
That has a lot of foundation in America’s foundation and our founding fathers. It also has a lot of foundation in the Reformation itself and the 16th century teachings and writings of Calvin and Luther and others who really sought to create societies that honored God.
Dr. Daniel Samms:
Absolutely right, brother. Absolutely right. Well, in fact, we see it reflected in the various states at our founding that themselves had very explicit Christian constitutions. You had to hold to essentials of the faith to hold office in most of the states, which is part of why I’ve taken the term Christian federalism a lot more to affirm that, you know, at the state level, we had little Christian nations, but we were federated together in a quite powerful Christian way that I think we can get back to.
Marlin Detweiler:
What does, you said, “get back to,” what does that mean? What do you pray for? What do you work for? Culturally speaking. Sociologically speaking in America, as an example. And I don’t mind extending on America. It’s important to do that.
Dr. Daniel Samms:
Oh yeah. Well, I think to some degree, at the very foundational level, when we honor the Lord as individuals and as families, as churches, we honor the Lord in our economics and in our politics. We see some things happen, but the goal would be that we operate in such a way as to see godly laws enacted, even at the local and state level, and that we build up from there.
We can enact pretty direct change at the local level, even if we just get out the vote. And so the goal would be to, yeah, to see godly laws enacted, to see us select faithful Christians and make things happen at that level, ultimately to see us restored very much to maybe a new Christendom, as some call it.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. What is it that scares the opposition to that?
Dr. Daniel Samms:
Well, I think in my interactions, immediately people think, oh, no, we’re going to set up some type of a state church that’s going to force people into Christian faith. And so far, I have come across precisely zero people that believe in that. In fact, a foundational belief of Christianity is that faith is a gift from God. It is not something that can be coerced.
And so recognizing that what we want to do is have laws that match the righteousness of God, like God is righteous in who he is by his nature. Our laws should reflect that righteousness. And so as we are applying such things, well, of course this is better for everybody. When we have godly laws related to how we punish evil and we bless what is good, that’s good for the atheist as much as for the Christian.
And I think that’s one of the big misunderstandings. We are not seeing. We’re not seeking some kind of a society in which people are forced to be Christians, nor are we seeking a society in which we are going to accept this broad, nominal Christianity. No, we just want righteous laws and to have Jesus honored as king, which has historically been very effective.
Even in modern times, one of the things that I came across in my research was that, you know, Poland specifically has declared Jesus king.
Marlin Detweiler:
In the context of Catholicism, Roman Catholicism?
Dr. Daniel Samms:
They are Roman Catholic, indeed. But what’s interesting is they actually have higher church attendance rates than here in the United States. And the normal thing would be like, oh, well, nobody takes it seriously. If it’s the state religion, then nobody’s going to take it. Well, actually, just the opposite. We’re seeing that no, there they have some of the highest rates of church attendance.
No, I don’t want everybody to be Roman Catholic, but I think there’s a proof of context or concept that you can have a clear affirmation of Christ in the public square that leads to deeper devotion to Christ, not lesser.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, I had a recent experience being with a tour guide. It was just Larry and me. So it was very direct conversation in Calvin’s Geneva, in his church and the people that were a part of the church were required to attend a service before they opened their shops on weekdays. How does something like that fit into how you envision culture and society?
Dr. Daniel Samms:
Well, that’s maybe a little stronger than what I even had in mind.
Marlin Detweiler:
We’re not in the 16th century anymore, that’s for sure.
Dr. Daniel Samms:
No, but here’s one thing I would say. The idea of requiring faithful church membership to hold office, that is an American concept. And how interesting, if then the role of the church was not to control anything directly public, but to be able to give an affirmation of hey, this person is a member in good standing here. Well, that would make church discipline means something, right?
When someone pushes for a pro-abortion bill and their church says, oh no, no, no, you’re going to have to repent of that if you’re going to be a member in good standing here and the idea of the church having a genuine stake in the claim of society, it’s kind of like what we see when Nehemiah is rebuilding the wall.
And I think it’s in chapter five, he finds out that the various investors are exacting usury over the people and creating this terrible situation. And he pulls them in, challenges them, and then brings in the priests and says, you guys are witness to this. And so the priests have a role to hold the line on the, on the, on the oath that was made.
I’m like, yeah, that’s the kind of thing we need the church to do now requiring church attendance every day before opening shop. It’s a little bit strong, but, you know, we’d have to talk about that. But that’s not what we’re going.
Marlin Detweiler:
Different place and time. Way different circumstances. And I do understand that. So most of the people that will hear you from this episode are people that are not holding political office. Many are not holding office in a church. They’re faithful Christians wanting to live faithfully. What does it mean to live faithfully as a Christian in light of this? And let me just say, I grew up in a church that didn’t think it lived separately.
It did not have an integrated sense of God’s creation comprehensively. And so I grew up with a very siloed way of looking at life. And this is, I think, at its heart is really saying God is Lord. Jesus is Lord of all of life.
Dr. Daniel Samms:
Indeed.
Marlin Detweiler:
So what does it look like for the average Joe?
Dr. Daniel Samms:
Excellent question. And you’re setting me up well, because I did write a book on this very topic.
Marlin Detweiler:
So I wish I were I wish I’d known that, but I’m glad that we providentially had that happen because it wasn’t my doing.
Dr. Daniel Samms:
No worries. So my book, Christian Federalism: The Founding Vision and Road Ahead, is partially looking at our founding, but then looking very practically, what can the average person do? Many people right now are seeing our country as I heard somebody say, it’s giving off dying mall vibes. It’s like, oh, things are on the downturn and we want to see this fixed.
But most people are like, you know, I go to work, I do all these things, what can I really do? And so we addressed four different things. And the first is this the basic stuff. It’s love your wife, raise children, homeschool them, disciple them faithfully, or put them in Veritas, which is, you know, homeschool adjacent.
And because that right there really does have an impact, a direct impact. And then we I even go in in the book, I go into, hey, attend church faithfully. We can actually see genuine faithfulness and families tied to church attendance that like getting to church twice a week, once on the Lord’s Day and once to some other thing actually has very low divorce rates and then low crime rates.
There’s powerful things that happen, not to mention spiritually, what happens when we gather together to worship the Lord, but then we go into very basic stuff, things like your 401k. There’s, you know, Robert Lee wrote an excellent book about how you can make sure that your investments are going to godly things and not supporting wicked things. And then we go into politics.
People don’t realize that at the local level, we can do big stuff. A lot of school boards are swung, the elections are swung by, sometimes as little as 50 or 200 votes. And so I’m like, well, that’s just Christians getting out the vote. So, you know, maybe you run for office, maybe you and you get some faithful brother to run for office.
You get maybe a guy from one church and a guy from another faithful church. You run them together at the same time. For city council. You do that in two cycles. You could control city council and you could enact some very real change. And by simply getting out the vote, especially in the primary. And so I get into the book, I get into the just very basic, you know, we can actually do stuff.
In fact, even in liberal states, we can win when we just get the vote out and we put forward faithful men to run for office. So yeah, lots of simple things. But it really does start with the basics. That’s not in a cop out sense. Like get to church, be faithful, worship the Lord, disciple your children. This is really how we win is in these basic things.
Marlin Detweiler:
And we say this pretty flippantly and I do it too. This is how we win. What are we trying to win?
Dr. Daniel Samms:
Oh yes, this is good. I want to see the entirety of public society come under the subjection of Christ’s authority.
Marlin Detweiler:
As if they are without recognizing it, right?
Dr. Daniel Samms:
They are without recognizing even now. But this sounds to when I say some of these things, people are like, really that seem so far away. And I’m like, yeah, but you know what? The Muslims are doing the opposite of this in Dearborn, Michigan right now. And they did it in short order. If they can do it, we can do it. We have Christ, we have smarter people. We have a godly message.
Marlin Detweiler:
We have a more beautiful world.
Dr. Daniel Samms:
We do indeed. I want to see things like we take, you know, we win the mayor’s office in the city council and we declare Jesus king over our little township. And then we lower taxes and we make it easier for families to function. We cut property taxes and make sure that the elderly are not at risk of losing their homes.
We make sure we do these very basic things where we’re applying what many would call good sense, but what it’s also in keeping with the law of God and every bit of the way we say, yeah, this is because Jesus is Lord and he’s died for your sins and he’s risen from the dead. And we make the gospel central to all of public life and private life and watch society thrive as that happens.
So yeah, that’s we want to see the gospel go forth and we want to see its effects play out. I think is the best way to say it.
Marlin Detweiler:
And is it fair to say we talk about common grace? Is it fair to say that much of what we’re talking about here, as it relates to the broadest of society definition of society, is about the common grace of God in the lives of the residents, the lives of the people?
Dr. Daniel Samms:
I would say very much common grace applied. I would recognize with that that, you know, we see in Romans 13 that the civil magistrate that helps keep this order is a servant of God, and a servant’s job is to obey his master. And I point out that God has given very clear commands on what that’s supposed to look like.
And so for us to have genuine common grace play out in the political sphere and in public life, it’s going to require that we have magistrates that honor Jesus as king and see themselves as his servants. And that plays out in all of the good common grace; the atheist benefits as the Christian does in a society like this.
Marlin Detweiler:
There was a period of time in the 1980s, probably most influenced by Greg Bahnsen and some of the it, and it gave Christian nationalism a bit of a militant feel to it. Talk to me about what happened there, how that faded away. What you’re thinking is compared to that and where you think we are today.
Dr. Daniel Samms:
So I would say that guys like Bahnsen, I think is the more palpable of many of them. But I would say that much of that faded out in least in its direct prominence. But in recent years, I think as our culture has drifted further from the holdover of Christianity. What we had in our culture was essentially akin to what Bahnsen was pushing, I think certainly different in many ways, but we benefited from the flavoring of Christianity, even after the enlightenment had taken us from the mooring of it.
And as our culture is now starting to feel the effects of what happens in a truly godless society, right. We’re watching. We were just talking about the riots in France, and we’ve seen similar things in parts of the United States over the last half a decade or more. And as that’s happening, people are starting to recognize, oh, yeah, we’re going to have some basis for society, and we’re watching what happens when that basis is not Christ.
And so what I am noticing is that now that Bahnsen-esque teaching is coming from a different angle now, it’s much more practical and less theoretical. And we’re seeing guys like Douglas Wilson and I think of the guys at Apologia Church, guys like James White and others that are saying, hey, we can apply these principles.
And I would say it’s much more palatable now, but it’s coming from a different angle. It’s less theoretical, it’s much more practical. It’s who’s going to be king as Jesus is going to be king. It’s his righteousness good? Well, yes, his righteousness is better than the righteousness of men. Of course. Let’s have laws that match that.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, I was struggling for the term. A term I was looking for was reconstructionist and that movement, which would have been that 80s and before group felt a little bit militant.
Dr. Daniel Samms:
It did. And rigid.
Marlin Detweiler:
And rigid. Yeah. One of the things that I like to say, I wonder if you can apply this to the topic of. One of the things that people fail to understand is that as Christians, we are engaged in war, a spiritual war, but it’s a war being fought, and we have to be very careful to not think that fighting that war is done the way the world fights, wars I have enjoyed.
I don’t know where this first came from. I don’t know if I came up with it or if it was somewhere else. So I’m not going to take credit for it. But I like the phrase that as we’re engaged with the enemy, we are most successful when we cause the enemy to become a traitor to who they are.
It’s not fought directly, it’s fought indirectly in that way. And how might we apply that in a discussion of Christian nationalism?
Dr. Daniel Samms:
Well, I think it gets us back to, you know, the fundamental truth that we proclaim is that Christ has died for our sins and risen from the dead, and that salvation is by grace through faith, and that when we recognize that, in fact, how interesting Romans 10:9–10 is where I believe we have the most simple gospel response, right?
Believe in your heart. God has raised Jesus from the dead. Declare with your mouth, Christ is Lord, that affirming the lordship and authority of Christ is built into the response of the gospel. Well, I would much rather see hearts changed as Christ takes out their heart of stone and gives them a heart of flesh that happens through the proclamation of the gospel.
And that’s not to say that we there’s not a need for political action and all these other things, like there’s an outworking of all of this that’s important. But we will lose sight of the main thing if we somehow think this is not ultimately about the gospel and fundamentally about the gospel. And so I would say, yeah, militant in our proclamation of the gospel, loving in our response, and ready to defend truth and goodness and beauty.
But yeah, it comes back to if Jesus is going to be king because he already is king. There we are. We win people to that, and their hearts and minds are changed through the proclamation of the gospel ultimately.
Marlin Detweiler:
You said a moment ago the idea of running for city council and seeing that appropriately and properly infiltrated by Christians and declaring it in, in that in the sake for the sake of the community, for the sake of the city. Jesus is Lord. Is that legal?
Dr. Daniel Samms:
Well, we would make it legal, but I believe it is.
Marlin Detweiler:
Would it stand the test of the way the Supreme Court has interpreted separation of church and state?
Dr. Daniel Samms:
It’s interesting. I would say if we’re looking at how things have been interpreted pre-Dobbs, no. But I think we’re all seeing that something is changing, that there has been a positive turn here. And it’s reminded me of before the Dobbs decision, how many times when there was an attempt to change abortion laws at the state level, the response was always, well, it’s just going to get knocked down in the Supreme Court.
Why would you even try? And even pro-life people were against those kind of actions. Well, then, once the Dobbs decision came along, now you have all these states that are backwards, like we could have been lined up and now we still have laws against abortion at the state level. And so I lean more towards well, let’s just do these things that honor Jesus.
Let’s see what happens at the local level. And let’s fight that good fight. And then, okay, if we have to push it up the ladder to the Supreme Court, we’ll go for that. We’ll do that. But we’ll trust that the Lord is sovereign over those things and we’ll let it happen from there. But yeah, I would say I guess we’ll find out.
Marlin Detweiler:
You’ve got to try. Yeah. Interesting. Well, there’s no doubt in my mind when it comes to separation of church and state. What we were trying to do here is keep the federal government from enacting a national religion. Well, that’s been turned on its ear. And the modern American has lost track of what really happened there and is interpreted it very differently. They’ve been indoctrinated with that.
They’ve been taught that. And if you’re old enough, you even experienced it. I remember that in 1962 or 63, when prayer was taken out of school, I was in school; the day before I prayed in school the day after I didn’t. I remember that, yeah, I am that old. Sorry.
Dr. Daniel Samms:
That actually is a testament to how recent that was. Right?
Marlin Detweiler:
I may be older than you think I am, but anyway. It we’ve really, you know, and it only takes two generations for that to be completely lost. And I think you’re pointing out something that we have a little bit of momentum that it’s time to push a little bit again on those points.
Dr. Daniel Samms:
I agree, I fully agree. And yeah, we need to learn how to win. And it’s funny when we have that mentality; it’s like the next goal comes easier than the first goal.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Daniel, thank you so much for the work that you’ve done. Thank you for what you do for us at Veritas. And thank you for what you’re doing for the Kingdom. This is really good.
Dr. Daniel Samms:
My pleasure. Thank you very much. Appreciate all you do as well.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. And folks, thank you for joining us on this episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian Education. We look forward to seeing you next time.