AWAKENING FROM CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM | Thesis # 21
My last thesis was about how politics is not the answer. And, I was already working on a follow up thesis to that when my country, the USA, experienced a tragic event that brought these things to the forefront once again. I felt inspired to write this before. It feels even more necessary now.
These Jubilee theses have never been meant as harsh cold rebukes to the church, but rather meant as a joyful awakening that we all experience together. Though I believe that this issue is significant, I also believe that if any of us are âoff,â it will just come to be seen as âfamily embarrassmentâ in the end, or in the apokatastasis, as Dr. C. Baxter Kruger likes to say. We are all family, learning and growing together! I see us all sitting at the family table, surrounded by the overwhelming Glory of a God who is smiling and proud of us all! For real.
In that context⊠let us beginâŠ
In the streams that I have run in, some would call us âthe Grace camp,â we have been deconstructing poor constructs of God for years, slowly leaving bad theology and our religion behind. Itâs still a journey of awakening, but itâs been wonderfully freeing and fruitful for many of us. We have embraced deconstruction of our religion, hopefully into Jesus himself instead.
Somehow, so many of us, while getting free from religion, we have NOT deconstructed itâs conjoined twin⊠called âpolitics!â
Both of them thrive on the same roots. Both of them often stem from the same poor Christology. (Now I know that there is a true healthy sense of both the words âreligionâ and âpolitics,â but I am referring to the more common everyday negative definitions of these words.)
The root of both negative religion and politics is this, âwe can promote the good and get rid of the bad through manipulation or control.â
Now, many people donât like the term âChristian nationalism.â
Usually this is because it is confronting something that we donât want to let go of, but, I donât really care if you use this term or not. My point in writing this thesis is to debunk the poisonous concepts and damaging beliefs, not to fight for those specific words. So, if you find better language, please go ahead. I donât care much to argue semantics.
Let me define what I MEAN by âChristian nationalism.â
Christian nationalism is when someone is blending their Christian faith with the politics that they think are best for their nation and/or blending their Christian faith with their national identity, in such ways that they begin to lose the clear distinction between the two.
Christian nationalism is when we combine the weapons of âthis worldâ along with the name of Jesus to attempt to improve a nation, politically or otherwise.
Many people asked me for a definition of those words, so there it is.
Now when most people read that, their first response may be, âWell, I would never do that.â The other common response is to say, âOf course, itâs a good Christian thing to care about the welfare of my nation.â
But, how many times do we find people using phrases like, âGod has blessed our nation above the other nations.â How many of us are just fine with the American flag flying ABOVE the Christian flag in most places where they are displayed together?
How many of us really believe that God is on the side of our particular politicians and our political party? And, that He is actively opposing the other guys?
How many of the ministers that we listen to have no problem prophesying that their party is blessed by God over and over again??
What if, instead, we humbled ourselves, like Joshua and realized that our Beloved Trinity is not taking sides here...
âWhen Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, "Are you for us, or for our adversaries?" And he said, "No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come." And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, "What does my lord say to his servant?" And the commander of the LORD's army said to Joshua, "Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so.â - Joshua 5:13-15
Christian nationalism is the need to prop up our political party or our nation as the blessed one, rather than just trusting Christ and caring about every person as equals in the moment. Itâs usually very subtle, but appeals to our fears and desires to be the greatest and best, or to preserve some specific nationâs culture above just the pure humble kingdom of God. It makes those who donât agree with the unnecessary cultural baggage feel less-than, excluded or wrong.
And, some would say, âWell these so-called Christian nationalists are preaching Jesus, so just let them continue. God will use them anyways. God doesnât require perfection. Didnât Paul say, âWhether by false motives or true, Christ is preached?ââ
Some of that is true. Yet, at some point we have to draw the line and say, âItâs not ok to use the name of Jesus for corrupt ends.â Simon the sorcerer was rebuked in Acts 8:20 for wanting to buy the Holy Spirit and use God for corrupt ends. And, though I am not saying that we have reached Hitler levels of darkness here in the year 2025 whatsoever, even Hitler used the name of Jesus to build the Nazi party and to motivate his German nationalism. Even Hitlerâs book âMein Kampfâ promotes Jesus as Lord & Savior, and then also recruits for absolutely poisonous ends. At what point do we draw the line? My hope for the modern western church is that we draw the line way before it gets that far!
However, the number of Christians who are ALREADY very ok partnering with insults, mockery, threats, manipulation, lying, racism, sexism, sexual immorality, abuse and all manner of evils in the political realm is a sad effect of âChristian nationalism.â And the number of false prophecies tolerated that come out every year where God is endorsing the candidate that they personally like. It goes on and on⊠And, many young Christians are being pushed by Christian nationalists into blending their faith with a national identity or a corrupt political party.
This warning also speaks to Christian gatherings being hijacked into becoming more about political agendas rather than Christâs kingdom.
Have you ever been to one of those worship services where they bring out lots of American flags and talk about America or politics so much that you wonder if or when Jesus and the Gospel are going to be preached? Sadly, many Christians have grown up in an environment where that is normal!
Politics and religion both focus on âothering.â Creating an âus v themâ mentality. Christian nationalism specifically focuses this mentality on exalting a particular national culture as more blessed by God. Again, very few would do this blatantly, and most donât realize that weâre doing it at first.
It often only exposes itself when you hear people say things like, âWe left America and went to the mission field,â or when people have a hard time dealing with the fact that many of the founding fathers of the USA werenât Christians. Early on, you often only see it in little things like that. It can develop more and more into Christians being fine with talking about political leaders a lot during their worship services, then Christians being fine with their approved politicians doing all sorts of evil, then being willing to do evil for their politicians, and on and on it can grow.
Christian nationalism exposes itself more when we find folks believing that their country could become a full on âChristian nationâ in terms of man made political government, or even wilder, thinking thatâs itâs already happened.
We can forget the Gospel, that Christianity is only something that can happen from inside a person, it cannot be enforced from the outside by a government. You can have many Christians in a nation, but the only Christian government is one where Trinity is ruling us from the inside out. Anything other than that is the lie of Christian nationalism, and results in manipulation and control, which to some degree may be necessary until the world wakes up to Jesus inside. And, what I mean by that is, of course police and courts and laws are needed to some degree in the world for now. But, that is not Christianity, and we need to be able to distinguish the clear difference between political leaders and governments doing what is a sad temporary necessity versus the eternal kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The words of Thomas Merton may help bring us more clarity:
âAnother characteristic of the devilâs moral theology is the exaggeration of all distinctions between this and that, good and evil, right and wrong.
These distinctions become irreducible divisions.
No longer is there any sense that we might perhaps all be more or less at fault, and that we might be expected to take upon our own shoulders the wrongs of others by forgiveness, acceptance, patient understanding and love, and thus help one another to find the truth.
On the contrary, in the devilâs theology, the important thing is to be absolutely right and to prove that everybody else is absolutely wrong. This does not exactly make for peace and unity among men, because it means that everyone wants to be absolutely right himself or to attach himself to another who is absolutely right. And in order to prove their rightness, they have to punish and eliminate those who are wrong. Those who are wrong, in turn, convinced that they are rightâŠetc.
We never see the one truth that would help us begin to solve our ethical and political problems: that we are all more or less wrong, that we are all at fault, all limited and obstructed by our mixed motives, our self-deception, our greed, our self-righteousness and our aggressivity and hypocrisy.
âŠPerhaps in the end the first real step toward peace would be a realistic acceptance of the fact that our political ideals are perhaps to a great extent illusions and fictions to which we cling out of motives that are not always perfectly honest: that because of this we prevent ourselves from seeing any good or any practicability in the political ideals of our enemiesâwhich may, of course, be in many ways even more illusory and dishonest than our own. We will never get anywhere unless we can accept the fact that politics is an inextricable tangle of good and evil motivesâŠ
I believe the basis for valid political action can only be the recognition that the true solution to our problems is not accessible to any one isolated party or nation but that all must arrive at it by working together.â
Wow! What a beautiful piece of writing! Please read it a few times and rest in it for a while. I surely need to!
Herein lies the solution⊠We are all in the same boat. Every political party, every nation, every opinion, every person is equally wrong sometimes, and yet equally blessed by God in Christ with grace and forgiveness.
This doesnât mean that we should never stand up and speak what we think is right. But, with much less focus on which party is right, or which nation is best.
We all need Jesus, a lot. And, we are all in the same boat. And, Jesus is in that boat, probably sleeping through the political storms that we are so concerned about.
He is welcoming us to rest together, and to lay down the us v them mentalities.
âConsider these questions: Did Jesus ever suggest by word of example that we should aspire to acquire, let alone take over, the power of Caesar? Did Jesus spend any time and energy trying to improve, let alone dominate, the reigning government of his day? Did he ever word to pass laws against the sinners he hunt out with and ministered to? Did he worry at all about ensuring that his rights and the religious rights of his followers were protected? Does any author in the New Testament remotely hint that engaging in this sort of activity has anything to do with the kingdom of God? The answer to all these questions is, of course, no.â - Greg Boyd in âThe Myth of a Christian Nationâ
The kingdom of our Lord Jesus is not about winning political power for national takeover. Itâs about loving our neighbor and showing them how Christ has forgiven and included them.
And, this is where I believe, now that weâve begun to deconstruct our bad theology, now we can also begin to deconstruct our bad politics. They both have grown up from the same poor western roots of thinking that domination and control can bring about the kingdom of God.
âIf we just had the right bold leaders in place we could set things right again!â Thatâs what they wanted Jesus to do, to become a political leader and rule through earthly government, but instead he revealed that everyone was in the same boat! The bible teacher and the prostitute, the Jew and the Roman, the slave and the free person, we were all being given the same gift, a kingdom that is not of this world. Something beautiful that bubbles up from within humanity, nothing to do with outward government or national identity.
âJesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world."â - John 18:36
This does not mean that someone should not ever participate in politics, or that one should not care about the prosperity of the nation they live in. But, it just needs to be seen as a very secondary thing to the kingdom of God, NOT establishing the kingdom of God. They must be very distinct and not muddied in any way. Warning about Christian nationalism means making folks aware of the insidiousness in which people get swept into doing unChristlike things for the sake of promoting Christian values in their nation.
The end doesnât justify the means.
You may feel the need to fight so that your political party can win, or that your nation can be the best. You know, there may be some small place for that in the scope of living in this world. With prayer and wisdom, sometimes that is ok. But, just know, that is not the kingdom of God, especially when it uses evil to fight evil.
In the kingdom of God, we are all humble little kids, all in the same boat. We are all equal, we all need Jesus, we all have Jesus, and none of us needs to push one another around. The kingdom of heaven is within. It has nothing to do with the political domination of this world, or the bolstering of our national identities. May we all wake up to the so-much-greater identity, wherein we find our true home, in humble beautiful loving Jesus Christ himself.
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Also, please watch the video version of this thesis where Matt shares more:
