Following my invitation to participate in the upcoming NEME webinar, Two Chosen Peoples? Two Promised Lands?, focusing on the intersection of Christian and Jewish Nationalism in the United States and Israel, I have been expanding my horizons in the ocean of literature exploring the history and contours of modern nationalism.
You know, I always appreciate another reason to read a few more good books!
Some of you may recall that I touched on the subject of American nationalism, and the related issue of civil religion, in my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America (Eerdmans 2018).
The more I learn about the history and developments of this mind-set called “nationalism,” the more convinced I become that it is hostile to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and inevitably corrosive to faithful citizenship in the kingdom of God.
Fortunately, more and more Christian leaders are speaking out to warn God’s people against the dangers of what I consider the worst form of nationalism, that is “Christian Nationalism.”
For example, check out the resources provided by the group Christians Against Christian Nationalism.
Christian nationalism insists that The Nation is bound together by a corporate commitment to the Christian religion, born of a Christian history and Christian culture. Being Christian people (however that is defined) becomes the centerpiece of national identity.
Christian nationalism goes hand in hand with a belief in the nation’s “chosenness.” The Christian nation is God’s unique, elect people with a special, divine calling to perform His will in this world.
Historically, such national callings have generally been implemented, at least in part, through warfare, colonialism, bloodshed, discrimination, and even ethnic cleansing.
Christian Nationalism creates a secularized ecclesiology [ecclesiology is the doctrine of the Church], offering a worldly, bogus doctrine of a “national church” for seriously misguided people.
It even creates alternative, secular liturgies, symbols, rituals, and vocabulary for national “devotion.” Nationalism becomes a religious exercise memorializing the nation’s holy history.
But disciples of Jesus Christ are called to find their personal identity in union with the peaceable, crucified Savior. Clinging to the idolatrous badge of identity provided by a warmongering nation-state is a betrayal of genuine Christian values.
“Christian Nations” (so called) can never embody anything other than the secularized fellowship of false identities carved out by the egotism of those who are distorted by their own peculiar ethic, regional, cultural, linguistic superiority complexes.
There ain’t nothin’ Christian about any of that.
Here is a short excerpt from a good book on nationalism entitled, National Identity (Penguin 1991) by Anthony D. Smith. (All emphases are mine):
The nation is called upon to provide a social bond between individuals and classes by providing repertoires of shared values, symbols and traditions. By the use of symbols – flags, coinage, anthems, uniforms, monuments and ceremonies – members are reminded of their common heritage and cultural kindship . . . The nation becomes a faith achievement group . . . Finally, a sense of national identity provides a powerful means of defining and locating individual selves in the world, through the prism of the collective personality and its distinctive culture. It is through a shared, unique culture that we are enabled to know ‘who we are’ in the contemporary world. By rediscovering that culture we ‘rediscover’ ourselves, the ‘authentic self’, or so it has appeared to many divided and disoriented individuals who have had to contend with the vast changes and uncertainties of the modern world. This process of self-definition and location is in many ways the key to national identity. . .
Nationalism, the doctrine that makes the nation the object of every political endeavour and national identity the measure of every human value, has since the French Revolution challenged the whole idea of a single humanity, of a world community and its moral unity. Instead, nationalism offers a narrow, conflict-laden legitimation for political community, which inevitably pits culture-communities against each other and . . . can only drag humanity into a political Charybdis. [Charybdis was a whirlpool off the coast of Sicily. Greek mythology turned it into a sea monster.]
True followers of Jesus Christ find their eternal community in union with the Lord Jesus and, thus, other members of the Body of Christ. That Body is an international, multi-ethnic, trans-territorial community of the faithful.
The disciple’s personal identity is developed through obedience to the Lord Jesus, becoming more and more like him as we share in the fellowship of his suffering. Self-denial, humility, mercy, including service to those who are most unlike us, form the core bundle of Christ-like character traits marking those who follow Jesus.
There is no room for the perversions of Nationalism, much less “Christian Nationalism,” among God’s people on this earth.
