An Empire Out of Fashion

The Virtues of Imperialism, pt. 1 of 2

“I came, saw, I conquered.” –Julius Caesar

It has been more than two thousand years since Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and made the first steps toward forming the Roman Empire; more than a century since Theodore Roosevelt occupied the White House as the last self-proclaimed “Imperial President”. Between those two men rose and fell a host of potential conquerors, expanding boarders with varying degrees of success. But this is all in the past. The Imperialist has doubtless gone out of fashion in our world. The noble, conquering hero, fighting faithfully for king and country, has lost his glory; the armor of the knight has lost its luster. But for a few pitiful displays of saber-rattling from would-be tyrants and third-world dictators, the days of fruitful conquest really do seem to be over. A world that once praised conquerors has been replaced by a place that holds an almost worshipful respect for borders, both national and interpersonal. Cursed be the nation that dares impede another’s sovereignty! Cursed be any man who dares question another’s system of beliefs! Today, anyone whose views bear even the faintest hint of imperialism is mocked and scorned and shamed. The imperialists—if there are indeed any real imperialists left—are left standing idly by, accepting the coals heaped upon them.

It is a sad irony that even the greatest Empires built in centuries past—bulwarks that should unquestionably have stood as the boldest, strongest fortresses of humanity—have been replaced almost entirely by empires that fundamentally oppose Imperialism. The true Empires have been systematically dismantled and destroyed, not because they found themselves facing worthwhile opposition, but because they found themselves facing a changed world that no longer cared enough to maintain them. As soon as the world stopped caring about building empires, the empires became unable to maintain the blazing fire with which they once promised to overrun the world. 

I am certainly one of the few remaining individual who would consider himself an imperialist; certainly I am one of the few who truly understands what it means to be an imperialist. I can say this proudly, but only because imperialism is an idea that means something—it means, in fact, something very specific (though the world has been trying to dispense with specificities, just as it has already done with generalities). An imperialist is one who conquers, and the size of one’s empire is a measure of one’s success. An imperialist is not necessarily an imperialist because he is attempting to conquer the world for the sake of expanding his own power, nor must he intend to subject the conquered to his own despotic rule; it does not mean that he must be a Nazi or a Fascist or a Socialist. An imperialist is only this: a man who believes strongly enough in some credo or system to fight for it; a man who maintains that what he believes ought to be believed by others, as well.

Imperialism is the fundamental belief, to put it perhaps even more succinctly, that it matters a great deal what a man believes. It means that a man's philosophy is his most important characteristic—more important even than his wealth or political leanings or attention to fashion. It is the thing that sets him apart most perfectly from the lesser creatures; the thing in which the image of the maker is most universally and most vividly reflected. What a pity, then, that this is the thing that has been most universally (and most passively) destroyed by the fraudulence of the Modern Mind. Rare are those today who believe in things not just definitely, but defiantly. Such men cannot hide from society's mores; they cannot creep silently beneath a cloud of -isms and the -ologies hoping not to be recognized. A true imperialist will always be recognized, for he does not follow the tides of the world.

But there is another element to this: while in a very true sense the imperialist always seems to be in motion, pressing onward as a perpetual conqueror, in another sense (also very true) the imperialist is the only man who stands perfectly still. The world is consistently changing, and the rise of postmodernism (ready to believe anything) and nihilism (willing to believe nothing at all) have led to a culture that is constantly changing, constantly adapting, and constantly compromising. The imperialist is the one figure who will stand in staunch denial of a world that floats and flits about on every changing wind and tide; a world willing to grasp the delicate thread of idealism only when the superficial ebb of humanity has declared it socially acceptable. 

The brave Imperialist stands still while the world changes around him; yet to the world this seems as foolish as a Medieval astronomer who believes that it is the earth that moves, rather than the sun. It is the opponent of imperialism who, in his fickleness, like a child, unable to sit still in a world gone maddeningly stagnant—for he has neither sought nor found anything worthwhile to hold on to. The imperialist has found his anchor; he has found his truth, and he pursues it with his whole heart.

Now, much has been said of the great abuses of the world's best-known Empires. Many such worldly empires have flooded the continents, both in our age and in ages past, and yet we stand in the first decades of the twenty-first century believing that we have somehow obtained (as if it were a good thing) a world without an empire. A world of fixed and resilient borders. A world of trade agreements and pacts; alliances and leagues. All nations, all beliefs, are tolerated, so long as they kneel at the altar of multiculturalism, where to even speak of imperialism is itself taboo.

But I do not disagree entirely with the anti-Imperialists. I agree, for instance, that many Empires have striven after evil and desperate goals. If my focus were reduced to political entities alone, then it is clear that the most successful imperialists have (to the misfortune of all) been almost invariably the ones with the least vision of how an empire ought to look. To the classic imperialist all is power and dominion. The end is expansion; the means need not be considered.

If such empires were truly all there were—barbaric, dictatorial empires rising and falling; building their statues in the squares of conquered towns and then having them torn down by the rapturous masses—then perhaps I could understand the world’s staunch opposition to imperialism. But, rest assured, this is certainly not all there is. Caesar spoke of coming, seeing, and conquering, but what if we consider, instead, the second most well-known statement on imperialism:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The empire demanded by Jesus Christ in His great commission is far different from the empires that immediately come to mind. It is also an empire that should never be confused with previous so-called “Christian” empires, such as the Holy Roman Empire or the ill-defined imperialism of the crusades. Much has been said—and there remains much more to be said—of the infamy of the Christian crusades (though the term itself is misleading—that they were crusades is inarguable; that they were Christian is contentious at best, and really ought to be flatly denied). These conquests have been called at various times 'barbaric' and 'holy'; 'murderous' and 'righteous', but only a madman could have called them 'successful'. And they were certainly not the thing Christ had in mind.

Christ gave us the one and only blueprint for an empire that could be truly virtuous and could truly overtake the world. The fact that this blueprint is only rarely followed is one of many reasons that every last attempt of man to forge a Kingdom of Heaven upon this Earth has been beset, not only with hardship, but with utter, miserable failure. Utopianism has been a bloodier movement than even the purest anarchy. Movements that preach a gospel of perfect fairness have resulted in mass graves that would be the envy of any Jihadist.

The empires of this world have failed because they have stood as entities with direction and magnitude, but they lack what is by far the most important dimension: they lack destination. They are but arrows pointing deeply and desperately into some ethereal distance, with a confusion of goals and gods to rival Babel, but they have nothing concrete on which to focus their gaze.

The most crucial principle to building a Christian Empire is that it is continually directed toward the person of Christ and the Kingdom that He spent His ministry defining. The greatest failings of our empires have always rested in forgetting to rest our eyes upon the reality of how my Empire ought to truly look. I, like the imperialists who have come before me, become far too at home in this world, forgetting that I am but a sojourner, and I look to my Empire as a thing that will conquer the world for the sake of might and power. But I am never so sane or so rational as when the more perfect focus returns. Only when I recapture an appropriate picture of the destination may I truly begin my conquest. And only then may the empire I am building have any hope of victory.

“To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”

“The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.”

“To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna…”

“The one who conquers and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations.”

“The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life.”

“The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God.”

“The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Revelation 2 and 3