Earlier this week, Right Wing Watch posted a clip of former Trump administration official and unabashed Christian nationalist William Wolfe declaring that “we are getting close” to a point where Christians need to “heed the call to arms.”
When we published a link to our post and a video clip from Wolfe's remarks on Twitter, Wolfe initially responded by bragging that his comments were "very based" while derisively thanking us for sharing them.
Yes very based. Thank you for sharing. @RightWingWatch is obsessed with me.
“Getting close.” Yeah, it’s close. It’s not now. Get over it. https://t.co/Aqh4h7M2U4
— William Wolfe 🇺🇸 (@William_E_Wolfe) November 1, 2023
Shortly thereafter, once Christians began to voice criticism of Wolfe's comments, Wolfe pivoted to attacking Right Wing Watch, filling his timeline with posts calling us God-hating pagans, evil liars, and a hateful anti-Christian organization that wants to criminalize Christianity—a ridiculously false claim for an organization committed to religious freedom and whose board and staff include Christians.
On top of that, Wolfe and his defenders began claiming that Right Wing Watch had posted a "hit job" by taking his comments "out of context" to misrepresent what he said.
We, of course, did nothing of the sort.
As we explained in our original post, Wolfe spoke at a “Jesus And Politics” conference last month where he delivered a diatribe against "cowardly" Christians and quoted extensively from a 1758 sermon delivered by Virginia evangelist Samuel Davies to a militia during the French And Indian War.
In that sermon, Davies declared that when Christians are “in danger by the loss of our religion,” then “even the God of Peace proclaims by His providence, ‘To arms!’ Then the sword is, as it were, consecrated to God; and the art of war becomes a part of our religion."
While quoting from this sermon, Wolfe made an aside to tell the audience that “if we have ever lived in a point in time in American history since then that we could argue that now is the time to arms again, I think we are getting close."
We accurately quoted Wolfe and even posted video of his remarks in their full context:
While Wolfe now claims that he was merely talking about Christians needing to take up in arms in self-defense and was not advocating for "proactive measures," that doesn't make his comments any less alarming, dangerous, or outrageous, as many of his fellow Christians have pointed out on social media.
And the fact remains that Wolfe's initial response to our effort to publicize his views was to stand by them and thank us for helping to promote them. It was only when his fellow Christians also found his comments to be alarming, dangerous, and outrageous that he attempted to defend himself by attacking Right Wing Watch for daring to accurately report what he had said.
