James Lindsay has been a friend to people like Michael O’Fallon and others who fought Critical Race Theory in the church, but James Lindsay is no friend to Christians as a whole. After becoming famous in our circles on the issue of Critical Race Theory, he has routinely attacked Christians for being pro-life and supporting Christian Nationalism as an affirmative solution to our country’s problems.
But let is be said again, that James Lindsay has had no influence on the work that Evangelical Dark Web has put in opposing Cultural Marxism in the church. And while some insist that we need or needed him, that is no longer the case.
James Lindsay decided to go after William Wolfe for being a Christian Nationalism using Stephen Wolfe’s The Case For Christian Nationalism as a means to attack someone who has their own written work on the subject.
After initially tweeting out and commentating on Paul Miller’s definition of Christian Nationalism, a definition Wolfe affirms while Miller opposes, James Lindsay accuses Stephen Wolfe of being overtly gnostic, and by extension, Christian Nationalism.
Do you denounce the overt Gnosticism underlying Stephen Wolfe's case for Christian Nationalism, William? https://t.co/26POauCFIp pic.twitter.com/bvp6GVbpqm
— James Lindsay, calling you to repent (@ConceptualJames) January 25, 2023
The image which is lifted from a review of Stephen Wolfe’s book describes a hypothetical situation for if Adam had not sinned. In a nutshell, the logic is that just as Christ lived a perfect live and has his reward in Heaven, so too would have Adam had he not sinned.
I think the passage is Gnostic because it posits man's alienation from his true self and thus state of discontent with the world itself as a fundamental condition of being man, not even a consequence of sin. That's the fundamental Gnostic orientation.
— James Lindsay, calling you to repent (@ConceptualJames) January 26, 2023
How does this constitute gnosticism? It doesn’t. Even if it is wrong, it’s not gnostic. Stephen Wolfe is not arguing that this is based on secret knowledge or that the material world is bad. James Lindsay seems to be asserting that because there’s no prooftext for this, it must come from secret knowledge.
Is this view point based in Scripture?
Short answer: no. Since God ordained the Fall of Man, this question is moot, therefore unaddressed in Scripture.
Long answer is that this is an esoteric debate from a different era in church history in which majority at on point in time held the same view that Wolfe articulates here. It’s not gnostic as Lindsay erroneously insists, nor would is necessarily place someone outside of orthodoxy even if wrong because of the inconsequential nature of the question.
Christians need to let go of James Lindsay and put his grift to rest.
