The Urgency of Piety
The Pilgrims on the Mayflower solemnly undertook to plant their colony “for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith.” As we undertake to plant this publication, American Mantle, we devote ourselves to this same end.
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
—Matthew 16:26
The Pilgrims on the Mayflower solemnly undertook to plant their colony “for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith.” As we undertake to plant this publication, American Mantle, we devote ourselves to this same end. For ourselves, for our posterity, and for our publication, there is no greater need than to serve God, through Christ, with true sincerity and holy fear. This God-glorifying service is summarized in one word, piety, and here I want to press its urgency upon our readers, with special application to our rising right-wing Christian movement.
No Piety, No Personal Salvation
Man’s greatest good is God. Piety describes the taking of God as our own greatest good, and serving him accordingly. By it we receive God as our chief end, and therefore make it our chief aim to please him. This piety begins with faith, which then brings forth its fruit, observance. Without both of these, each in their place, a man has no hope of salvation.
Scripture is clear about the necessity of faith: “Without faith it is impossible to please him” (Heb. 11:6). Faith rests in God, and in Christ the only Mediator between God and men (1 Tim. 2:5), apart from whom we can do nothing (John 15:5), and have only condemnation (John 3:18; 14:6). Scripture is also clear about the necessity of observance: we must seek “holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14), and faith without works is dead (James 2:26). True saved Christians both believe, and live.
Observance takes as its special rule the moral law, not as a covenant of works to obtain merit before God, “for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified” (Gal. 2:16), but as a grateful response to free justification, as the fruit of faith and of the saving grace of sanctification, and also as the path laid down toward heaven, that of good works, which God “before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10), and which will be demanded at the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10).
The word piety describes in summary this faith and observance. The pious man, like Enoch, walks with God (Gen. 5:24). The impious man, by contrast, walks after the imagination of his evil heart (Jer. 7:24). He walks in the way of the ungodly, which shall perish (Ps. 1:6).
To apply this to our readers: the New Christian Right, the Christian Nationalists, or as we say affectionately, “our guys,” are not exempted from this rule. No piety, no personal salvation. No faith, no Christ. No holiness, no heaven. You may have grand aspirations for our nation’s future; you may be widely followed for your zealous verbal warfare for our people’s good; you may have made notable “wins” for our good cause: none of it matters, as least for your own soul, if you’re not saved. You may do much good for your fellow man, perhaps so much that when you die they’ll build a monument to honor you. But what good will that do for you, if you’re in hell? Be sure, that without faith and holiness, that’s where you’ll be.
No Piety, No National Salvation
As for men, so for men’s nations: piety is necessary for national salvation too. “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Ps. 9:17). A nation’s actions in their totality must be devoted first to God, and to Christ, the Son of God, the King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16). The nation’s power must be wielded for the sake of man’s chief end, God’s glory. Therefore its magistrates must use the sword to suppress wickedness, including and especially gross blasphemy, impiety, and superstition, enforcing first of all the first part of the Ten Commandments. They must also by their civil power serve the church of Jesus Christ, not encroaching upon her unique heavenly calling, yet supporting her in outward ways appropriate to their own earthly calling, becoming nursing fathers to Christ’s faithful church (Isa. 49:23).
This does not mean that a nation can have no blessing until all its people are converted. Politics deals chiefly with the outward man, so political Christianity can subsist with some inward impiety among a people. But it is unthinkable that a nation ever will be Christian, without having at least a strong minority of truly Christian citizens and magistrates. No Christians, no Christian nation. No Christian nation, no hope of divine blessing. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD” (Ps. 33:12).
Personal piety, therefore, is a matter of national security. We would underline this with two warnings Scripture gives to nations.
Impiety Brings Judgment
Indifference or hostility toward religion is a harbinger of national disaster. Speaking to the believing church God says, “The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted” (Isa. 60:12). This disaster often comes in two specific ways.
First, God gives an impious people over to perversion. As Paul explains, because men gave up God’s worship, “God gave them up unto vile affections,” epitomized by sodomy (Rom. 1:26–27). Any man whose eyes are open sees this dreadful judgment on America today.
Second, God punishes wicked men by wicked men, sending one godless nation to chastise another. He threatened this to Israel (Deut. 28:25, 43–44), and fulfilled this threat: “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence” (Isa. 1:7). Again, who cannot see this same just judgment on America today? And note the sober turn of fate, that the same Israel according to the flesh is now become a nation that devours ours, and all mankind (1 Thess. 2:15).
These punishments, though horrible, are mixed with mercy, for the nation so punished at least continues to exist. Yet it would be presumptuous to think this always will be so. Remember Sodom and the Canaanites.
Impiety Brings Failure
In addition to God’s active judgment, a lack of piety by its own nature will bring failure to our efforts to reform our nation. First, by treachery: the godless man is not trustworthy. Wicked Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of stew, and wicked Judas sold his Master for a bag of silver. A man who keeps no faith with God, will not keep faith with men. Second, by mockery: what will our foes think of our Christian Nationalist cause, if we can’t even personally be Christian? Ungodliness inevitably comes out, often in tragic scandals, which will destroy our movement’s credibility. Third, by overconfidence. Godlessness threatens all these judgments, then makes them all the worse by vain complacency, the thought that surely they won’t come. A people without piety are proud, and pride goeth before destruction (Prov. 16:18).
For all these reasons, then, Americans who love their nation ought to first of all love God. Otherwise, they should not hope for God’s salvation, or his blessing on our people.
Our Enemies’ False Piety
To these reasons for the urgency of piety, we add the fact that so many of our enemies try to harm our cause under its counterfeit. False piety, which some call pietism, is constantly used to undermine us. This should not discourage us from piety (as Satan would gladly have it), but rather help us better see its urgency: even the wicked know it’s needed, thus they work so hard to fake it.
They do so first by making piety a mask for leftism. They boldly trumpet secularism as a pious thing, under the color of kindness, patience, and heavenly-mindedness—as if it were more godly for a nation to be godless, or at least indifferent toward God. They turn Christianity egalitarian, as if man’s common creation in Adam, his common lot in sin, and believers’ common salvation in Christ, dissolved all natural distinctions: a woman can play the man, an Indian become American, and Whites intermarry with our violent former slaves. They teach a piety indifferent toward perversion, conniving at effeminacy, sodomy, gluttony, drunkenness, the flagrant murder of abortion, the subtler genocide that comes by birth control—as if men could destroy their own manhood, their own bodies, their own children, their own nation, and all the while be seeking first God’s kingdom. Then finally they demonize all opposition to these leftist evils, saying that Nazis, Fascists, White Supremacists, etc., cannot be saved. Once you speak of “blood and soil” with any sympathy, you’re out of the Kingdom, and if possible, cast from the church.
They also make a counterfeit of piety by using it to excuse failure. They spiritualize suicide, especially for White Americans: “What does it matter if my children live in a brown country? I want my nation to be Christian!” Besides the fact that strangers bring their strange gods with them, this indifference toward the very existence of our race is utterly “without natural affection” (Rom. 1:31; 2 Tim. 3:3). They also practice shameful pacifism, twisting Christ’s command to love our enemies, teaching instead we ought to have no enemies, or if we have them, we ought not to name them, or deal justly with their enmity. They preach a Christianity that never conquers evil, indeed that lets it flourish, while closing their eyes and chanting, “Christ is on the throne!” Indeed he is, and from that throne he will judge justly such a shameful taking of his name in vain.
The biblical word for a practitioner of such false piety is hypocrite, meaning, an actor. He wears a mask, and we must rip it off. But we cannot do so without true piety—lest we prove hypocrites the worse by a false stand against false piety.
Seek Piety, and Guard It
Given the urgency of piety, I therefore call our readers urgently to seek it. Seek your own salvation by “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). Seek salvation for your nation, first by the faithful witness of your own piety, then by diligent evangelism of your neighbors, friends, and family, and according to your place and calling, by bold testimony in the public square: “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet” (Isa. 58:1). To this end, American Mantle solicits solid articles on piety, theology, and Christian ethics. Please contact me if you or someone you know can serve our nation in this important way.
Having obtained true piety, we also must then guard it from all things that would suppress its life and vigor. I spoke of the leftist abuse of piety above, but our right-wing Christian movement needs specific warnings about its own besetting sins: foul speech, lack of sobriety, an earthly “fight, laugh, feast” mentality, a pragmatism willing to do evil that good may come, open desecration of the Christian Sabbath, softness toward the harlotry of Papistry, and other forms of spiritual presumption, thinking of ourselves, our children, our churches, or our nation, that God’s blessing may be ours without true faith, repentance, holiness, and perseverance to the end. My brethren, be not high-minded, but fear (Rom. 11:20).
American Mantle is resolved by grace to seek and to defend true piety.
In this may Christ himself bless us, and you.
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