What is Christian Nationalism?

Psalm 33 verse 12 says blessed is the nation whose

God is the Lord. I like that verse. Do we want our nation to recognize the

Lord? Well I do, obviously not everybody does. But tonight we're going to be looking at the subject of Christian nationalism and this is a new term for a lot of people.

I never heard of Christian nationalism. Some would say like it's not even a thing, it doesn't even really exist, it's a boogeyman or something like that.

I think it's a term just for me, I heard it maybe four years ago within the last three or four years.

But let's start out with the definition and then we'll look at a few verses that may apply.

The definition of Christian nationalism, this is kind of the problem, it's hard to find a real definition.

But here's one, a political movement that believes America was founded as a

Christian nation, privileging Christianity over all other faiths.

Now some people say well that's not Christian, that's just a fact. But still people would say well that's not true, that you know

America is secular, we've always been secular and we should remain secular. I mean some people would say that.

Others define it however as an extremist movement that is set on overthrowing the federal government in the name of Jesus.

So that's kind of two very much opposite definitions.

Here's what Pastor Votie Bauckham says, and because Christian nationalism sometimes you hear politicians talking about it and they'll call it something else.

They'll call it white Christian nationalism because they want to interject the subject of race into everything, right.

Votie Bauckham is African American, just for what it's worth, doesn't really matter to me.

But here's what he says about Christian nationalism. He says the whole controversy is manufactured in his opinion.

The evidence he says is that nobody can agree on its definition.

He says people will ask me what do you think about Christian nationalism or where do you stand on the subject.

And he says my first question is always how are you defining the term. So if somebody asks you that's probably the first thing you should say.

How are you defining this? Votie Bauckham says I always get a response that is unclear.

And then yes he talks about how some people include the word white Christian nationalism.

So you can see with that term itself people are painting it as a very bad thing.

And people who are Christian nationalists are probably like in the Klan or something. They're along those lines.

They're these just evil horrible people. And yet if you look at the first definition that I read,

I mean that would probably define most Christians I know. So just the term

Christian nationalists, if somebody just, before I ever really studied it or heard about it, if somebody asked me are you a

Christian nationalist, I wouldn't say yes because I just never heard the term. So I'm not going to adopt a term that just came out of nowhere.

I'm like I'm not a pagan globalist so maybe I am a Christian. It's like you have to be one or the other almost.

But the question I want to start with tonight though, number one, was

America founded as a Christian nation? Who says yes? And listen if you have a different opinion, no one's going to get on your case.

Who says no? I don't think America was founded as a Christian. I mean it would go how do you define a

Christian nation? Jesus was mentioned in our founding documents. Mentions in the year of our

Lord and give some reference to God. So okay question number one, was

America founded as a Christian nation? Just about everybody agrees.

Are we a Christian nation now? I think it's safe to say now we are secular.

Third question, who would like to see it go back to being a Christian nation again? Like what

Christian would say no? Like no I don't want it to be a Christian. It's hard for me to really understand but there are two sides.

So we're going to read an article from TGC. This is a group known as the Gospel Coalition.

I'm not a big fan of the Gospel Coalition which is sort of why I chose the article because they do kind of give the other side a little bit.

So I'll read that but we have some more things to get to. Ray you had your hand up.

One back in the day if you wanted to start a new town you had to have a church first.

Right yeah yeah in New England you notice that every town has a church in the center.

If you wanted a town you had to have a church and the church sort of like acted as the town hall.

Now there were problems because it was the congregationalists and they baptized infants so any baby that would be born we go to the town hall and get the the birth certificate.

Well it was all through the church so if you were a Baptist I mean that was problematic and Baptists were actually persecuted.

So there is a downside to a Christian nation. It's like depending on which version of Christianity you're getting that's being established.

But what about Bible verses? I already quoted one Psalm 33 verse 12.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. What are some other verses that come to mind?

Righteousness exalteth the nation but sin is a reproach to any people.

Okay that's a good verse. Those do those prove that Christian nationalism is a good thing?

Well maybe not but here's a verse people on the other side they would quote this.

Jesus said in John 1836 he says my kingdom is not of this world.

He said if my kingdom were of this world my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the

Jews. But now my kingdom he says is not from here. So some people say see the kingdom of Christ is not of this world so we should never you know mix government and or politics and religion government and religion.

You got to keep them totally separate because his kingdom is not of this world. It's true he did say my kingdom is not of this world but he never he never said my kingdom will never be in this world.

Like the kingdom of Jesus is coming. We pray for it every Sunday. Thy kingdom come.

We believe it will be established on the earth and this is one difference between maybe

Baptist churches or churches that have a Baptist theology. That would be more like us where we typically don't want a government adopting an official state church.

Like we don't like that idea and we're pre -millennial. We think the kingdom of Christ really can't be set up by men.

It has to be set up by Christ. So it'll never actually work until Christ comes.

If you're Presbyterian or Reformed or if you're post -millennial they believe that the kingdom of Christ is set up by men and historically they have had a relationship where the government does have an official state church and they tend to be more okay with that.

So depending on whether you're on the Baptist side or Presbyterian side will kind of depend or determine how you look at this.

So Marcus. I consider myself to be a member of his kingdom and even though he said his kingdom is not of this world we acknowledge him as prophet, priest, and king.

So in a way his kingdom or at least part of his kingdom especially in this room is.

Okay any other verses or passages that might come to mind that you think might speak to this issue?

John 14. Okay. We are not members of this world.

We're members of the world to come. We belong to Christ. Okay yeah.

This is not our home. Okay it's like Paul said our citizenship is in heaven.

Right okay. All right good. So you know we want to think of passages that might speak to this issue.

Marcus brought up a good one. Proverbs 14 .34. Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people.

Any Christian that I know who takes their faith seriously wants the laws of the

United States to be more in line with scripture. That doesn't mean we take the law of Moses and just copy and paste it and make it.

I mean that wouldn't even be practical today because we're living in a different type of society.

But the general equity of the law of God you know the basic principles.

Yeah I think that would be a good thing if you believe righteousness exalts a nation.

But sin which many of our laws are now defending sin even promoting sin.

We're seeing what that does to our country. I mean we're going we're getting worse not better.

So this has a real effect on on a people. I watched a documentary.

Larry do you remember the name of it? The name of the documentary? It was from the it was from the derogatory side.

Christian nationalism is a derogatory term. And my understanding of what they were accusing

Christians of is trying to I shouldn't say the word overthrow the government but take over the government by force and force

Christianity upon everyone. And that was their their accusation.

But the way that we look at it is if we could just elect

Christian legislators that make our laws.

We've seen how much turmoil just the overthrow or the overturning of Roe v.

Wade which was just just so abhorrent to Christians but part of our law and same -sex marriage and things like that that are just not scriptural.

And so and so yes we try to elect Christian congressmen,

Christian senators, and a

Christian president. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Yeah the problem is though even if you did elect them as soon as they try to propose a bill does they say that you're basing that on your religious beliefs you can't do that because of you know separation of church and state.

And they're trying to block that to where even if you do vote Christians into office you're not allowed to to push your religious beliefs.

Of course as I've said many times the separation of church and state which is something I believe in that's not what the separation of church and state means.

The separation was to keep the state out of the affairs of the church not the other way around.

Christians have always influenced society and our laws originally were at least loosely based on God's law.

Anyone who looks at our nation's founding and all of the references the founding fathers gave to God and God's providence it's really undeniable.

So the first time I heard about this term Christian nationalism it was after the

January 6th incident. Everyone knows what happened January 6th at the capitol.

So here's the thing I looked at it 30 ,000 people were in attendance. 2 ,000 actually entered the capitol building.

So in a crowd that size I'm sure and I think the record bears this out.

Most people were peacefully protesting but in the mix out of 30 ,000 people were there some bad actors involved?

Yes. So in a crowd that size you're going to get both. But in the middle of the crowd this is the first time

I ever heard about Christian nationalism in the middle of that sea of people outside of the capitol there was a guy with a sign that said

Jesus saves. Who's seen the footage? So because of this guy with the sign that says

Jesus saves people you know now start talking about Christian nationalism basically what they were saying is this is an insurrection against the

U .S. government. These Christians are trying to overthrow the government and that's kind of the narrative that they ran with.

Again are there were there a few people there who maybe would have liked to see that happen?

I don't I don't doubt it. Did the majority is was that their goal for the majority of people?

No I mean if they were really trying they would have brought weapons but nobody had. So you know it was a protest that went it went wrong obviously it didn't work it was a bad look but to say to try to paint

Christians as extremists I think that's what they're trying to do. I think there is a political goal to try to influence people on how to vote or how not to vote.

Yeah I've had 27 years of experience at UMass about protests and rallies and the detective bureaus are there with cameras and almost always you will see the same people in these protests whether no matter what the issue is they just like to cause trouble and there are always they're called keynoters there's always instigators and there's documentaries and photos of instigators there at the capitol that day that were taking yes the weak -minded or those uh that are easily um aroused and what was was instigating and and uh and causing things to happen that shouldn't have happened.

All right let's turn to psalm chapter two psalm chapter two

I think the heat and rage amen yeah psalm psalm two

I'm trying to think of verses passages that would apply obviously the whole old testament

Israel at at least a certain time was a theocracy right

I mean Israel was a nation and Moses was the leader and he was a religious leader it was

Moses and Aaron later on it was a it was a monarchy but David he brought the ark to Jerusalem and had the temple built and in Israel there really wasn't a separation of the you know church and state so to speak the two were kind of intertwined and that's the way governments have been throughout history the belief system of the people is that's how the government operates but even with Israel there was one type of separation in that the priests could not be the king once Israel adopted you know the system of the kings a priest could not be a king and a king could not be a priest so you know that that was the only separation of church and state uh there was there will be a man though who is all three he's he's a priest he's a king and he's a prophet and of course that person is is

Jesus and like I said he will reign on the earth and this passage speaks to that so psalm 2 starting in verse 1 why do the nations rage or why do the heathen rage and the people plot a vain thing the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the lord and against his anointed saying let us break their bonds and and cast away their cords from us here's a question based on maybe genesis 9 who is the first person to institute human government or the first being to institute

I would say god we believe it's it's our belief that god instituted human government if you look at it in genesis chapter 9 after the flood the lord told noah whoever sheds man's blood by man his blood shall be shed so god instituted the death penalty that there has to be some authority structure to punish evildoers so god in at least this general sense god is the one who raises leaders up right and and brings them down we see that in the book of daniel god views human government in a good as a good thing in the sense as long as you're punishing evil and rewarding good then yes government can be used for godly purposes it's it's a good thing that we have it but what do we see in psalm 2 that the people of this world they don't want to an authority that's following god they don't want a nation that you know their god is the lord what do they want they just want to break free from god they want to be their own rulers i mean some i guess somebody could is just a thought that came into my mind i guess somebody could argue that that's what democracy is it's people voting on hey what what are we going to do and this is another thing i've never heard i was brought up being taught america is a democracy right isn't the united states a democracy we believe in democracy yeah we're not a democracy we are a what democratic republic or a constitutional republic you can't just vote for whatever you want as long as you can get the majority to vote for it we're going to do it we have a constitution and the constitution should be guiding our laws so in that sense it's not a raw democracy who who's the one who defined democracy as you know two wolves and a sheep voting on what they're going to have for dinner or something there's that quote but anyways marcus criminal law is based clearly on the ten commandments yeah we do want leaders who uphold uphold justice and preferably god's version of justice did you have your hand up here well i just keep coming back to the same thought i mean i don't know the reference because i'm really bad at addresses but um seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and marcus had mentioned that at every protest there's always the instigators who are trying to up and create problems and i keep coming back to the same thought that we all have these really great intentions when we come together but it only takes one rotten apple to turn the entire head of that protest if you will to move it to the wrong direction and i mean these are the people that are seeking their own promotion their own power they want power they want god's power and that's kind of what they're accusing this christian nationalism of doing right if that's even a real thing and not just a billionaire so you're you're referring to matthew 6 33 but seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you i would identify as a citizen of of the kingdom am i an american citizen yes so we're all in this boat right we are citizens of heaven citizens of christ's kingdom amen is that you we're also citizens of the united states so which one do you put first is is maybe the question um but if you look at the rest of psalm 2 you know the people of this world they just want to break the restraints they don't want god telling them what to do i would argue there's people in this country yeah they they want all the influences of christianity of our past just get rid of all of it but psalm 2 verse 4 says he who sits in the heavens shall laugh like they may have their day right now they seem to be winning right now but the kingdom of christ is gonna come and it's only a matter of time and what does the lord do he says in verse 5 and he shall speak to them in his wrath and distress distress them in his deep displeasure yet i've set my king on my holy hill of zion so basically what he gives christ verse 8 he gives christ the nations as his inheritance so one way or another the kingdom of god is going to come to this earth i do not believe that we can usher it in though and i think this is the problem with some christian nationalists they think if we just do this this and this then we can usher in the kingdom of god i mean this is the post -millennial mindset and i just you know the catholic church tried that and it didn't work i mean they're called the dark ages i mean people were tortured and killed in the name of christ so there is a reason why you don't want one established church just taking over everything because again that that already happened in europe and especially as protestants or bible believers like we don't want the catholic church ruling the united states at least i don't but because if there was a church to get that kind of power it probably would be rome so i think there's three types of christian nationalists before i'm going to read the article one moment but this is my assessment there's three types of christian nationalists obviously there's people who might get be called that but they don't accept the term but here's type number one bible believing christians who vote you're going to get called a christian nationalist if if you love the lord and you just want to see our laws in this country based more you know on god's law you're whether you accept the term or not you're going to get labeled that okay so that's the first type of christian nationalist type number two and these people are out there these are the the people typically of the pentecostal charismatic variety where they believe they really believe that donald trump is an object of bible prophecy like this is a real thing they think he is anointed directly by god and whatever mission that god has given him they've made prophecies and of course there's the failed prophecies that he's going to get the second consecutive term so many of these people have been revealed as false prophets but they really believe that trump is anointed by god you might think that that's okay that's some of you probably like the guy but you're like that's taken away too far he's not an object of bible prophecy but but that is a thing it's actually a strong movement tens of thousands of people believe that in this country so that's the second type i think that is spiritually dangerous but it's type number three who may be physically dangerous these are the people they're they're waiting for the moment to strike they really would take up arms they want to take up arms and they're just waiting for the opportunity so if these people ever got power and their vision of god and church and state if that ever came to pass they would establish atheocracy and they would persecute and kill everyone who disagrees with them but there there's always there's people like that on the right there's people like that on the left there's people like that who are in cult groups the number is so small the odds of them actually achieving this is it's zero okay it's not anything that i lose there's always crazies out there there's muslims in this country i'm sure who want to take over is that going to happen tomorrow no it's not going to happen tomorrow you know someday maybe things will change but that's sort of the third type like there are violent extremists out there who would justify things in the name of god but um there's such a small number i wouldn't worry about it i said we're going to read this article so we need to read it this is from the gospel coalition it's called the good bad and the ugly of christian nationalism they say what is christian nationalism christian nationalism has become a junk box into which everyone piles his own conceptions but it's not monolithic three dominant perspectives on christian nationalism have arisen over the past several years so they're going to give three definitions and i came up with my definitions before i read the article so we're just going to see what they say okay so the article continues some equate christian nationalism with rioting at the u .s