When I started this article on Christian Nationalism, I did not have in mind that January 6, the first anniversary of the Election Fraud Hoax Insurrection was just around the corner. But, here we are.
A recent topic de jour of the evangelical Internet is Christian Nationalism. From those who decry it as an unholy hybrid of faith and state to those who defend it as, more or less, Christian citizenship, Christian Nationalism is the latest shell fired in the culture wars. In my own writings, I found the first mention of it almost a decade ago:
This unhealthy, unholy hybrid of Christianity and hyper-nationalism has cheapened the former and lent unwarranted authority to the latter. When a church baptizes converts under the American flag—as I personally witnessed one July 4—it is Christians, not unbelievers, who have more than their toes in the waters of blasphemy.
As tends to happen in these battles, definitions are few, assumptions are prevalent, tribal alliances are fast, and clarity-seeking is passé, leaving too many ended where they started, yet more certain of their position.
What follows is offered toward clarity, with defined terms, to the end that Christianity is detached from nationalism as the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ is separate and distinct from any kingdom of man no matter how splendiferous, religious, or long-lived
What it isn’t
Patriotism
Patriotism, per Merriam-Webster, is love for or devotion to one’s country. Country, in this context, is more than simply boundaries. Patriotic Canadians need not love a shared border with the United States—some might prefer not to. “Country” includes the culture(s), language(s), history, geography, and symbols of a people in a land-space controlled by its own government.
People along political and ideological spectrums can love their country. Some love their country because of what it has been; others because of what it can become. But many (if not most) love what they perceive their country to be rather than what it is. One difference between nationalism and patriotism is the latter does not require an other; it can exist without reference to being first, better than, or extra. A patriot can live in a country of no power just as well as a super-power, as every Olympiad reminds.
Loving one’s neighbor/fellow citizens
Some object that Christian Nationalism is nothing more than love of neighbor, but this is woefully insufficient. It was the Pharisees who tried to trip Jesus by asking, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus’ distilled answer is, “Whoever needs help or helps.”
Others argue, “Shouldn’t we love the people that are near us more than people who are far away,” as if I can’t love a good friend in California or Romania more than someone on the other side of my neighborhood that I’ve never met. Proximity might lead to more frequent interaction, but it might not; it definitely does not lead to more love. Plenty of Christians who love their country don’t know anything about the people on their street.
Christian citizenship
Some contend that Christian Nationalism is the same as being a Christian citizen, that to oppose Christian Nationalism is to be a gnostic or to otherwise ignore the physical world. Such a contention reveals an inaccurate understanding of nationalism and Christian Nationalism, both of which are hyper-focused on their own country to the near or total exclusion of other countries. For Christian Nationalists the other countries of the world may as well be ether if they conflict with the purposes and goals of the Nationalist’s homeland.
What it is
First, a distinction between nationalism and Christian Nationalism. One can be a nationalist and not be a Christian. Both the Nazi Party and the Soviets were nationalist. Torch-carrying Alt-Right protestors chanting “Blood and Soil” are nationalists. The Tamil Tigers were nationalists. Nationalism does not entail violence (though violence often accompanies it), nor does it need a specific religious impulse. It can be distinctly secular.
Ernest Gellner, author of Nations and Nationalism, defines nationalism as “primarily a principle that holds that the political and national unit should be congruent (p. 1),” though he accepts a slightly expanded definition as “the striving to make culture and polity congruent, to endow a culture with its own political roof, and not more than one roof at that.”[1]
Emeritus Professor of Nationalism and Ethnicity at the London School of Economics, Anthony D. Smith, says nationalism is an “ideological movement for attaining and maintaining autonomy, unity and identity for a population which some of its members deem to constitute an actual or potential nation.”[2]
Adam Wyatt, author of Biblical Patriotism: An Evangelical Alternative to Nationalism, writes, “Nationalism is the thesis that a person’s first and supreme loyalty should be to the nation-state.”[3] Then: “Nationalism is connected to a people’s relationship with their community and country, and it is an irreplaceable and vital part of their identity.”[4] It is America First and any other slogan like it.
Finally, conservative theologian and writer, Bruce Ashford, writes in his article The (Religious) Problem with Nationalism:
In the modern West, political nationalism centers on modern nation-states. Nationalists view their nation-state as more than merely the aggregate of its citizens. Usually, the nation is seen as superior to other nation-states in its ability to exemplify some transcendent value. For Americans, this value is usually freedom.
(Aside: Ashford addresses a crucial point. America’s highest value is freedom, a value that Christianity teaches is subordinate to loving and serving others. Followers of Jesus have been freed to do those things, not freed to avoid them.)
Christian Nationalism is a form of Nationalism that has been baptized and sanctified by Christian theology. It is the position that one’s country is superior to all other countries due to a perceived unique relationship to God and/or a conflation of Christian doctrine with the laws/policies of the country. The latter often conflated with the former.
Joseph Williams of Rutgers University defines Christian Nationalists as those who
insist that the United States was established as an explicitly Christian nation, and they believe that this close relationship between Christianity and the state needs to be protected—and in many respects restored—in order for the U.S. to fulfill its God-given destiny.
In Kierkegaard’s Critique of Christian Nationalism, Stephen Backhouse defines CN as
the family or set of ideas or assumption by which one’s belief in the development and uniqueness of one’s national group (usually accompanied by claims of superiority) is combined with, or underwritten by, Christian theology and practice. (p xii)[5]
Of late, academics Andrew Whitehead and Sam Perry have helped shift the CN concept back into the mainstream, or at least a large tributary, of evangelical conversation. They define CN as
a collection of myths, traditions, symbols, narratives, and value systems—that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civic life…It is as ethnic and political as it is religious.
Christian Nationalism forms Christians who are too-much discipled by their nation’s history, mythology, and governing philosophy; the story and politics of the country have become the spiritual mentor for such disciples. It combines patriotic and Christian imagery and is shocked with the idea that Jesus would object. Spiritual warfare is primarily warfare against the culture rather than against the principalities and powers who in league with the Evil One to harass and oppress every people. Christian Nationalism is a hybrid that destroys the Kingdom ethos Jesus came to bring, subjugating the kingdom of God to a kingdom of man.
In what can best be called a neo-fascist screed, Newsweek Opinion Editor Josh Hammer, calls for a Nationalism that adapts easily into Christian Nationalism. Hammer centers “God” in one minute, “We need greater social consolidation, more meaning to our lives, and, ultimately, more God,” then for jailing the enemies of his “National Conservatism” the next: “
The only way for the American right to accomplish this, once regaining power, is to prudentially wield that power in the service of pursuing our ideal of the substantive good, and to reward friends of our just regime and punish enemies of our just regime within the confines of the rule of law.
A “just regime” requires defining both and, with Hammer a blink away from going full Il Duce—all in the name of making “God” central to his nationalist view of America—we can safely conclude just to be synonymous with “agrees with us” and regime with “we who are in charge.” The “rule of law” will be obliterated whenever the “just regime” decides. Connect those dots and see what image lies before you.
I wrote previously to distinguish the difference of the Kingdom to which Christians are called:
Christian Nationalism persists despite significant biblical evidence that to be a Christian on earth is to be a member of a nation that transcends place and time. It is a nation that rejects power, oppression, the lust of the flesh, eyes, or pride of life as policy, either explicit or implicit. The “holy nation” of God’s own creation is of a different order than the nations of humankind. It equates to Jesus’ kingdom spanning every earthly nation, tribe, tongue, and people. The ethics of this kingdom-nation are set by its King, not by human monarchs striving to gain wealth, keep power, or establish historical remembrance. The power of this Kingdom is the power of the gospel of Christ.
Far from disconnecting from the world, those Christians who view their citizenship in heaven (Philippians 3:20) are able to live to the fullest on earth. We can serve those around us because our lives are hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3); we are thus freed from nationalist impulses that otherize some bearers of the Imago Dei. We are free from worldly concerns centering on ourselves, but we are not freed from earthly concerns of our neighbors—wherever they might live.
Once loosed from the pseudo-biblical framework of Christian Nationalism, we can give our full attention to biblical discipleship rather than hanging so many hopes in the basket of political machinations. We return to and embrace ethics of God’s kingdom instead of the those of the kingdoms of men: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Jesus’ wilderness temptation to receive all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for bowing to Satan is recognized as a temptation, rather than received as the opportunity of a lifetime.
[1]– Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. United Kingdom: Cornell University Press, 2008, 42. Accessed via Google Books, January 1, 2022, shorturl.at/luQ34
[2]– Smith, Anthony D. Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History. Germany: Polity Press, 2013, Ebook chapter 1. Accessed via Google Books, January 1, 2022, shorturl.at/avEM0.
[3]– Wyatt, Adam. Biblical Patriotism: An Evangelical Alternative to Nationalism. Denver, CO: GCRR Press, 2021, 97–98.
[4]– Wyatt, 98.
[5]– Backhouse, Stephen. Kierkegaard’s Critique of Christian Nationalism. United Kingdom: OUP Oxford, 2011, xii. Accessed via Google Books, January 1, 2022, shorturl.at/ehvG7.
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