Christian Nationalism vs Theonomy: On Selling Public Land

President Trump and Senator Mike Lee’s touting the possibility of selling public lands has created a large fire next to the fires of forever wars in the Middle East and the need for mass deportations. The internet is in uproar over the proposal and rightfully so. Christian Nationalists have long been sympathetic to maintaining public lands, believing this to be good stewardship over America’s vast beauty. 

There are many people who conflate Christian Nationalism and Theonomy. Some Christian Nationalists began in the habit of calling themselves General Equity Theonomists. However, as the discourse has played out, the distinctions between Christian Nationalism and Theonomy are played out on certain issues where Christian Nationalism disagrees with libertarianism. One such issue is the sale of public land.

Doug Wilson’s departure from Christian Nationalism was largely because it was never going to become Postmillennial Theonomic Libertarianism. However, some people who hold similar views are still friendly to Christian Nationalism and perhaps identify as such. David Reece, a pastor and private equity investor, represents a portion of Theonomists still friendly to Christian Nationalism, and debated Theonomy vs Natural Law at the Right Reformed Ministries conference.

At the debate, Reece criticized the American bureaucracy’s inability to have dominion over land, highlighting the government’s ownership of Arizona land, which inflates real estate prices and prevents development. He was greatly applauded for this. However, the overwhelming majority of Christian Nationalists are more sympathetic to the Natural Law, and see nothing biblically wrong with public land as a concept, and would note that America’s bad experience with bureaucracy is not every other nation’s experience.

Indeed, many nations ravage their natural beauty. India comes to mind as a nation that has no regard for nature and conservation, as even rivers they treat as holy are wantonly polluted. Obviously, the American stock has a higher regard for conservation, but this had to be cultivated through decades of experience.

America is currently experiencing a housing crisis. Building on public lands is one solution being floated. Now this necessitates jobs on or near these public lands, a fact not considered in many cases.

However, the solution isn’t to resort to full-scale Lex Luthor-style real estate schemes. Rather, the solution is mass deportations, and perhaps an El Salvador-level crackdown on inner city crime.

Illegal aliens are tens of millions of people who have invaded the country and compete for resources, like housing, often with government assistance. Mass deportations would eliminate much of the competition for housing and cause prices to fall. Mass deportations are a deflationary policy as fewer people would be chasing the same amount of goods, giving the middle and lower classes more buying power.

Additionally, innercity crime creates a rot that expands and slowly causes real estate prices to surge in surrounding areas while they crater in the inner cities. Baltimore is a great example of this as it has no shortage of cheap rent and housing, but most Marylanders can’t afford to live there because the price is too high in a different way.

At the present moment, selling land should not be a consideration. Christian Nationalists instinctively know this is a bad idea, while Theonomists, often simply libertarians, have been pushing this idea for a long time.

They have a champion in Mike Lee and an ear with Trump. But this idea is disastrous and will likely enrich bad actors rather than solve America’s housing crisis.