I am against Christian Nationalism. I am against the blending of the Christian faith with the aims of any earthly government. The faith always loses.
I do not (yet) think Christian Nationalism is a heresy, but I strongly believe it is doctrinally deficient and close to dangerous. That it stands in the long line of things to be cynically weaponized for political gain is reason enough to oppose it, but its theological problems demand its rejection.
What follows is a screed.
Christian Nationalism is a misguided attempt to construct a Christian nation, but what constitutes a Christian nation?
- Is it when a majority of the population are Christians? What about half? 90%? One-quarter? Two-thirds of the adults?
- How is “Christian” defined in a Christian nation? Those baptized as infants? Those who can “tell ya now the time and take ya to the place where the Lord saved them by his wonderful grace”? Those who display the fruit of the Spirit? (but who is responsible for inspecting the fruit?)
- Will the laws be based on the Old Testament? Will pork chops be outlawed? The author of a soon-to-be-released book defending Christian Nationalism says in a Christian nation blasphemy laws would be instituted.
So, is the Taliban building a Christian nation or is Christian Nationalism really just implementing sharia law? - Is Jesus is written into the Constitution by name in a Christian nation?
- Will the worship of God be enforced by state action? This can only mean, of course, compulsory church attendance, since no one can force another person to worship from the heart.
One of the telling things about CN is not merely that it depends on culture warring for its goals, but it prefers, even demands it. The reason CN relies on culture warfare is it has exchanged it for spiritual warfare, its blessing for a bowl of soup. It is easier to mock people or excoriate them for being sinners than to pray for their eternal souls. Attacking enemies is far easier than loving them and far more satisfying to the old self.
Christian Nationalism seeks to institute politically what it has failed to do spiritually. Recasting political discipleship from Christian engagement in the public square to a Christian takeover of the public square, they shame those who seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness for not seeking earthly power as they do.
Christian Nationalists carp on rights they imagine themselves in danger of losing after decades of seeing the actual rights of others negated, trampled, or removed altogether.
Their goal is to turn democracies into theocracies. But as anyone who’s read history knows, the reins of government easily become whips in the hands of the powerful.
Christian Nationalism diminishes the global church by making nation-states rather than peoples the focus of the Great Commission.
Christian Nationalism effectively downplays gospel proclamation in favor of political machination. It must, because an unregenerate populace cannot divine the ways of the Divine. Salvation, then, necessarily results from politics rather than informing it, with the story of Jesus dependent on support from the state. It is this unholy hybrid of watered-down Kingdom theology and hyper-patriotism that is to be avoided like COVID in a cough.
This belief in a unique relationship between America and God helps perpetuate something more than patriotism: the belief that to love country is to love God and to love God is to love country. It is to syncretize policy goals with the gospel, heedless of the warning that when the Church and politics get in bed together the Church gets the STD or the warning of scripture itself that nothing can be mixed with the gospel of Jesus. It is when God Bless the USA evokes the same level of emotion as Amazing Grace, if not more. It is to pay more heed to the symbols of the American Civil Religion—its hymns, its holidays, its banners, its priorities—than to the redemptive truth of Christ crucified, buried, raised, and now seated at the right hand of the Father. It is to elevate “constitutional liberties” over sharing our clothes and food, going the extra mile, or laying down one’s life.
Christian Nationalism gives us a loaf that is all yeast and cannot be eaten or salt ground underfoot having lost both its appeal and its savor. The kingdom of God is always portrayed as the little that influences the lot. In Christian Nationalism, politics is the disease infecting the church. Many if not most of the current crop of American Christian Nationalists would reject the idea that England is a Christian nation, but England is one of oldest “Christian nations” in the world, if not the oldest. England even has a state Church of which the monarch of state is the head.
Some Christian Nationalists, in trying to defend the focus on “nation,” insist that God is building “a nation of nations.” But that is not what scripture teaches. He’s building his kingdom of some from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. Geopolitical entities are not the focus; peoples are. God is less concerned about the lines on the map than he is the lives inside them. (See Daniel 4:1, 5:19, 7:14; Acts 1:8; Rev 5:9, 7:9, 11:9, 13:7, 14:6.)
The head of any “Christian nation” is a human ruler, whether king, queen, president, prime minister, regent, bishop, or pope. The head of the kingdom of God is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
The Christian nation is the people of God
In Exodus 19:5, God gives to Israel this promise, “you will be my own possession out of all the people, although the whole earth is mine, and you will be my kingdom of priests and my holy nation.” After the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God expands his promise using the exact same words: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession…Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people” (2 Peter 2:9, 10). Jesus is said to be the one “who loves us and has set us free from our sins by his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father” (Revelation 1:5–6). Some translations say a “kingdom of priests,” echoing Exodus.
The New Covenant transforms our attention from geopolitics to heavenly realities. The concern of all God’s people in all ages and in all places should be all the peoples of the world. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves no matter where that neighbor might live.
So, I am against Christian Nationalism because I am for the kingdom of God.
fides quaerens intellectum
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