What is Christian Nationalism? Is Christian Nationalism compatible with Christianity?-Podcast Ep 130

Defining Christian Nationalism and the Meaning of Nationalism

Welcome to the Got Questions podcast. So over the past, I don't know, few years, I would say we've received a lot of questions about Christian nationalism. And it's become, the volume of questions are increasing, not decreasing.

This is kind of a, in a sense, like a boogeyman term in that a lot of people use it and they use it in a negative sense, but not actually knowing what it means or what it historically means. So we're gonna be discussing what is Christian nationalism?

And then a little bit closer related to that, I mean, what should a Christian's attitude towards the nation in which they live and the political system they find themselves in? How should we approach that?

What should be our attitude? How can we take our faith and apply that to our politics, to our social positions and so forth? Not the easiest topic, but it's an important topic. And again, this is something we're being asked about a lot, especially with the election coming up.

So joining me today is Jeff. Jeff is the administrator of BibleRef .com. And Kevin, he's the managing editor of Got Questions Ministries. So gentlemen, welcome. And Jeff, why don't you start us off and let's start by just defining these terms so it can be very clear what we're talking about.

So let's start with them. What is nationalism?

That's always a good place to start is with definition of terms. And unfortunately, not to rain on the parade, but no matter what we do, people are gonna use whatever definition they have in mind when they're saying these things.

So almost anytime we have a conversation about this, we may need to ask a person, what do you mean when you say this or say that? Now, nationalism per se really just means a appreciation, a love, a loyalty, a devotion to a particular nation.

Usually that's used in more of a cultural sense, but it's not necessarily a government sense. And in and of itself, that's not necessarily a bad thing for a person to say, I appreciate, I like, I want to engage in my culture.

It's not necessarily bad for somebody to say, I like the way my culture does things. I think we do things the right way. I approve of those. That's okay. Where nationalism starts to become a problem is when it sort of turns into its own form of religion.

When it becomes something that overrides the things that we see in scripture as far as God's commandments about how we treat other people. Good example of this is in Matthew chapter three, where you have the Pharisees are talking to John the Baptist and they're saying, well, we are children of Abraham.

And his response is to say, God could make children from stones for Abraham. Jesus has similar conversations with the Pharisees. What had happened in that time was a Israeli nationalism had gotten to the point where instead of just thinking, this is a good way to do things.

And I'm even willing to say, this is the best way to do things. Where it came to the point of saying, this is the only way to be. And anyone who's not naturally innately part of this explicit nation is completely wrong, completely evil, completely bad.

So there's a point where nationalism goes from appreciation to obsession. And it goes from something that's reasonable to something that's sort of quasi religious. There again, as you were saying Shay, Christian nationalism then becomes a term that gets used as a boogeyman, where it almost doesn't mean anything.

And as long as we're gonna offend people with political words, there's lots of political words that people use that I don't think they really understand them. When they use them. I hear terms all the time like hate, fascist, communist, socialist, that people throw around and they don't really have anything to do with the actual conversation.

They're just scare words that people put out there. So Christian nationalism, the way the term is used is meant to suggest that what Christians are trying to do is they're trying to enforce conservative, evangelical, biblical ideas into law.

That's what people are implying when they say Christian nationalism. Now in practice, usually they're just throwing that at anybody who in any way, shape or form connects their faith to the way they vote or the way they think about policies or the way they do anything.

If somebody says, I'm praying about this, that or the other, especially if a politician says, I'm praying about this, immediately you get the charge of, well, that's Christian nationalism. And those are not the same thing.

There's biblical distinctions between rightly applying what God tells us to our approach to culture and government versus unrighteously applying those things in ways that assume that our particular view has to be enforced to the extent that it needs to be legislated on top of other people.

And there's enough overlap that I can see why people can try to make the accusation, but at the same time, it's being used in a way that doesn't fit with what most Christians are really doing.

Christian Nationalism, Worldview, and Voting

When I think of Christian nationalism, what usually comes to mind for me is an attitude that Western culture or specifically American heritage is inextricably linked to Christianity. And that if you are a true American, if you're a good American, then you have to be Christian.

That in my mind is Christian nationalism as an attitude, and it crosses the line. Because we recognize that we live in a pluralistic society and that America was founded to provide freedom of religion and freedom of speech and freedom of thought.

And so we have good Americans, true Americans who are of all different religions, all different beliefs, all different lifestyles. And so I would reject that attitude, but that's what I think of when I think of Christian nationalism.

Some pollsters have come up with some, like a scale based on six statements and whether or not you agree with these six statements shows your level of Christian nationalism according to these polls. And the six questions are these, the federal government should declare the United States to be a Christian nation.

Now, I suppose that there are people who actually advocate for this, that there needs to be an official declaration that we're Christian, but I would think that that goes beyond what most Christians want.

Second statement, the federal government should advocate Christian values. Statement three, the federal government should enforce strict separation of church and state. Next is the federal government should allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces.

Statement five, the success of the United States is part of God's plan. We have a special place in God's plan in world history. And number six, the federal government should allow prayer in public schools.

So this would be the official classroom prayer led by a teacher who may or may not be a Christian and all of that. And personally, I don't see the need for non-believing teachers in the public school to be leading prayer in a classroom.

I would not advocate for that at all. But in some of these others though, as far as the government should advocate Christian values, the wording of it is kind of weird because we want laws to be reflecting righteousness.

And if good laws that benefit society and promote the welfare of people happen to align with Christian ideals and values, then well, that's the way it is, I guess. So we're not, we don't want the laws to be specifically Christian.

We do want them to be promoting the welfare of all of society. And I think there's an overlap there. Doesn't necessarily mean that you're a partly Christian nationalist because you believe in that type of thing.

Yeah, looking at a list like that kind of reminds me of like, how many points of Calvinism do you believe in? It's like, well, it kind of depends on how you define the terms and they're going back to how we started this is that depending on how you define the things that were in Kevin's list, I'm either a two to four point Christian nationalist.

So I don't even know how to really answer the question but the way I'm hearing it thrown about, especially in the news is that anyone who believes that their Christian faith should influence or inform how they vote, what causes they support, what politicians they support, where they send their money, politically speaking, that that's Christian nationalism.

Well, everyone has beliefs that impact the way they vote. That comes from their worldview. If Christians have a consistently biblical worldview, it can't not impact how we vote and the political views we hold.

Because the worldview of a Christian is supposed to be all encompassing, it's supposed to impact every area of our life or coming to faith in Christ makes us a new creation. It changes into entirely new person.

To say that it impacts everything but your politics, that no, that's not how it works. We are solely dedicated to Christ and He is the Lord of every area of our lives, including how we vote. So if our Christian beliefs, our commitment to God's word, our belief that God is sovereign and that He's in control and I need to obey Him, if that makes me a Christian nationalist, then so be it.

But that's not a negative thing, but as I was saying, every worldview you have impacts your voting patterns, your political beliefs, the stances you take. And I don't see other forms of nationalism being thrown about in the same sense, because these same things could, well, is there a Muslim nationalism?

Is there an atheistic nationalism? Is there LGBTQ plus nationalism? So we all have beliefs that impact our politics that doesn't make it nationalism and that doesn't make it wrong.

Yeah, just to piggyback on what you were saying there, Shay, we live in a representative form of government. And so we elect people who are to represent us. When I vote, I vote for people who most closely represent me.

And the way I think and my values, what I consider to be important, what I prioritize. I want a candidate to be in office who is representing, truly representing me. And I happen to have a Christian worldview.

And so that's going to affect my vote. A lot of times, of course, it's the lesser of two evils is what you end up voting for. But again, it's the candidate who is most like my values. Who's most likely going to be promoting the same things that I would be promoting if I were in office myself.

It's also good to remember that Christians do not necessarily think that it's a good idea to put power in the government's hands to make a say about some of these things. And that's another place where I think Christian nationalism is confused.

There are an awful lot of Christians who believe that Christian principles are the best way to do things. So I would consider myself a person who would say categorically, it would be much better for the United States to take Christian approaches to all these different social issues and moral issues and international issues and economic issues and all these other things.

Obviously, I think those are the best way to do things. But for me personally, I'm very, very leery of giving human limited fallible government more power than it needs to. So in a sense, I don't want what a lot of people would define as quote unquote Christian nationalism.

And the reason is nothing to do with Christ. It has nothing to do with the Bible. It has everything to do with, I don't like the idea of telling other people that I'm gonna let other human beings dictate what that Christian approach is to be.

I would like to see a position where people have the ability to choose and then through dialogue and conversation and evangelism and so on and so forth, we can convince individual people that that's the best way to go.

Now, even that sometimes gets wrapped up and called Christian nationalism, but that is not how most Christians approach it by saying, yes, I think that the law should legislate how this happens. Now, there are some people who theologically disagree with that.

We've talked about things on our website, like dominionism, the seven mountain mandate, things like that. Those are ideas where people actually believe that that is precisely what Christians are called to do.

I don't see that as even remotely biblical. Jesus said, his kingdom is not of this world and we've got other things that we're supposed to do. Kevin, I know that you've had experience with talking about those issues before.

I'm pretty sure you've got the same stance on things like dominionism and seven mountain. What's your take on those?

Dominionism, the Seven Mountain Mandate, and the Great Commission

Right, well, that I think that when we focus on conquering these various spheres of influence and taking them over in the name of Christ and basically becoming the movers and shakers in society, I think it just kind of is the wrong focus because as Jesus said, and Jeff, you alluded to, Jesus' kingdom is not of this world.

It's true that righteousness exalts any nation, Proverbs 14, but government's not the savior. Government is not gonna be the route through which we transform a culture. And it's got to be a heart change in the lives of individuals.

It's going to be making disciples of all the nations and that happens on a one-on-one basis as we tell others about Jesus Christ. So I think when you talk about dominionism and the seven mountain mandate, we're just kind of losing focus on what we really need to be doing, which is fulfilling the great commission.

Yeah, you take terms like dominionism and even I've heard it called Christian reconstructionism where essentially people believe that our national laws should be based on the Old Testament law, that that is God's universal pattern for all nations to have those sorts of laws.

And obviously there's certain aspects of the Old Testament law that we have in our laws. Thou shalt not kill, it's a clear example. Thankfully, it is still illegal to murder people here in the United States and in most instances, I'll keep my mouth shut after that.

But that's not what Christ calls us to. Creating a Christian form of government is nowhere advocated in scripture. I mean, in the sense of like a formal system. I mean, obviously the gospel, as I was saying earlier, impacts every area of our lives.

And if we consistently were able to elect Christians who would take firm stances on things for Christ, according to what the Bible teaches, it would have an impact on our government. But our goal should not be, well, let's Christianize our society by electing a government that's going to enforce it.

No, that's not the gospel at all. The gospel is sharing the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection as the full atoning sacrifice for our sins. Through faith, we can be saved, forgiven, promised eternity in heaven.

And then that message then transforms us. And then if enough people are transformed by that, that transforms the nation. It's more of an inward change that produces national change. It's not a, let's change our nation, therefore enforce Christian principles.

So some people who are advocating Christian nationals have the process backwards and that they're trying to, let's look to the government in a sense as our savior, like Kevin was saying, rather than looking to crisis or say we're focusing on national change rather than individual change.

And that's backwards. That's the exact opposite direction that the Bible points us to. But with that said, again, I cannot say more strongly that following Christ will impact your political views.

It has to.

I'm not saying you always have to vote a certain way. I'm not saying that Christians can only be members of one political party. But if you look at the political issues that Americans like to fight about, it's pretty clear which direction the Bible points to.

And not all of them, but many of them or most of them, it's very clear what's right and what's wrong. And our Christian faith should inform and even decide our stances on those issues. Again, it's not a matter of us trying to enforce our views on others.

It's a matter of us standing for what is right and promoting what we believe honors God, glorifies God, and will eventually be for the betterment of our society. And like Jeff was saying, we firmly believe that applying Christian principles to our legal system, to our political system will result in a better society that works for everyone.

But the problem is it's been so poorly done. Every nation in the history of the world has failed in many ways. I wanna talk a little bit about some of the dangers of Christian nationalism in a Christian sense.

But Kevin, I know you were wanting to jump in on this a little bit, so take it away.

The Church, Government, and Christian Priorities

I just wanted to throw out here that I think it's a good thing to keep in mind. It's very comforting, I think, to remember that Jesus said, I will build my church. And there was nothing attached to that, no caveat or no exceptions.

He just said, I will build my church and nothing is going to be able to stand against it. The gates of hell even will not be able to prevail. So we see the church through history flourishing in parts of the world that were far from the type of representative democracy that we have.

So it doesn't matter in the end, it doesn't matter what type of government we're functioning under, the church can flourish under dictatorships, the church can flourish under all types of adverse conditions.

We see it around the world yet today. And so the mindset that we have to have the right people in political office in order for the church to prosper, in order for God to be glorified is just false. In the final analysis, Jesus is building his church regardless of the political climate that you happen to be in.

We also see in the New Testament that when we're told to pray for leaders and authorities and those in power, it's connected to a desire to live quiet lives. And in a sense, what we're told is that the only thing that we should really, really, really expect or hope for out of government is just to leave us alone and just let us pursue our faith the way that we think is best.

And I think it's fair for people to want to have a definition for some of these things that mean something. So I don't think what we're saying here is that Christian nationalism doesn't exist or that there is no such thing or that people who are concerned have concerns that are totally unfounded.

I think we can distinguish a difference in these things. And I think the difference really comes from either the bottom up or the top down approach. I think if somebody's belief is we should be allowed to pursue our Christian faith, we should tell other people about it.

And those individual people should vote and act and do as they feel led by the Holy Spirit because we think that's gonna transform society in the right way. I think that's the right way to do things. And that's not the Christian nationalism boogeyman that people are thinking of.

At the same time, if you hear people or politicians taking the top down approach, we need to elect this particular politician or we need to install this particular Supreme Court justice because we need to have these particular laws so that we will become a Christian nation.

That's very much the approach that Pharisees were trying to take in Jesus' day where they're trying to start from the top and enforce things and then make people conform. And that's not the essence of the gospel.

That's not the way it works. So as a ministry, we're really careful about parties and candidates and everything else like that. So this isn't to call out some particular group or party or candidate, but there is danger in somebody acting like our primary mission or an important part of our mission is to get politicians and rulers and kings and laws in place because that is never going to influence people.

We have to start from influencing ourselves and then our family and then our neighbors and then our communities so that people can make those decisions on their own. All the other things come down to political preferences and there's tons of different ways for Christians to express those, but the most important thing is we need to be starting from our level and working our way up.

If somebody's trying to say, I don't need to convince other people, I just need to get the laws my way, then this boogeyman of Christian nationalism does start to become something legitimate and it isn't something that scripture supports.

Yeah.

Christian Identity, Political Priorities, and the Gospel

So I have several friends who are pastors who have been struggling with, using their words, Christian nationalists in their church. And when they're using the term, they're using it similar to how you just were, Jeff, the making politics your, focus, even your hobby horse, soapbox, whatever you wanna call it.

And to the point of, I don't know, maybe a friend of mine described it as, are you a American Christian or are you a Christian American? It's like, what's your priority? Is your priority in loving your country and trying to accomplish your political goals or is your goal to be a Christian, to be a follower of Christ, to exemplify how he lived his life and how you live yours, to proclaim the gospel?

The Christian should come first. And again, I'm not saying this, being a Christian lacks political involvement because it doesn't and truly being a Christian impacts your political viewpoints, every aspect of your worldview, but what's your priority?

And churches being divided, fighting over political issues, Christians fighting with each other, even outside of churches over these things, Christians being a poor witness while turning people away from the gospel by their political views.

And ultimately I have strong political views on some issues. And if someone asks me about them, I will gladly share those, but I would gladly keep my mouth shut if I thought even for a second that me sharing this political viewpoint is going to prevent me from being able to share the gospel with someone.

I think that's a priority shift that we need to remember is that our call as Christians is to point people to Christ through the gospel, through the clear teaching of scripture.

And I wanna step in to

And I wanna step in to

To emphasize

Politics and everything else comes next.

Yeah, I wanna step in to emphasize that where you talk about the priority shift, just to briefly bring up that I think part of the problem is we lose track of our expectations. And I think a lot of the truly dangerous Christian nationalism comes from the expectation that we are going to find approval and freedom and ease and success here in the world.

That if we're doing things the way God wants us to do, then society should be friendly to us and we should get our way and we should have things the way we want it. It's entirely possible that Christians are going to live in cultures and nations and places where that's not the case, where most people don't agree with you, most people don't like you, most people don't approve of your faith.

So I like why you're phrasing that in terms of a priority shift. We should not be focused on, am I getting rights? Am I getting approval? As important as those are, and they are, that's not what we're called to.

We're called to faithfulness and understanding what that means can be very different in different circumstances.

Here are some things that all Christians should be doing and these come from scripture. We should be salt and light in our society. We are told in 1 Peter 2 that we should fear God and honor the King.

So we give honor where honor is due. We pay our taxes. Jesus illustrated that. We have a clear command in Romans to be paying our taxes and we should love our neighbors and we should be seeking true justice.

And whatever else that we are involved with and whatever our political persuasion, we need to be at least doing those things and fulfilling the great commission.

Excellent thoughts, both of you. I've enjoyed this conversation. I've known this episode needed to happen for a while, but was really trying to even just solidify my thinking and understanding of, okay, what do we actually want to communicate that would be productive?

So I would attempt to summarize it. Government is not the savior. There's nothing wrong with loving the nation in which you live. I love the United States of America. I truly believe it's the greatest nation on earth, the greatest nation in the history of earth in terms of freedoms, opportunity and so forth.

But my love for this nation does not even approach my love for Christ. My dedication to the United States is nowhere near my dedication to Christ. And I have to constantly reevaluate my feelings, my emotions on what am I prioritizing?

So just remember that government is not the savior. Government is not the tool through which Christ accomplishes his kingdom. His kingdom is not of this world. We are to be in this world, not of this world.

So many writers in scripture that this world is not our home. We have to remember that. Maybe we close with this. As Christians remember that ultimately we are monarchists who are waiting for our King to return.

And that is ultimately the only thing that will transform this world is a faith in Jesus Christ and people becoming new creations and allowing the Holy Spirit to transform everything about us, including our political viewpoint.

So let's keep our priorities straight. Let's love our nation. Let's obey its laws. Let's promote godliness, but not at the expense of embracing the government more than we embrace Christ or more than we embrace people we are trying to reach with the gospel.

So it's been the Got Questions podcast on Christian nationalism. I hope our conversation has been encouraging, helpful to you, Jeff and Kevin. Thank you for joining me. Got questions? Bible has answers.

We'll be fine.