Christian Nationalism, Part 2

The danger for the future of Christianity

I am an Evangelical and I pray for and would love to see a genuine revival in our country. However, it’s not likely to come through “Christian Nationalism.” One cannot legislate spirituality. The Apostle Paul wrote, “. . . the letter [legalism] kills, but the spirit brings life.” 2 Corinthians 3:6c.

This is my second article about the subject of nationalized Christianity. Since some people reading this may not have read the first one, I briefly refresh my main arguments against it, but in subsequent paragraphs, I have new material about why Christian Nationalism would not be good for Christianity’s future.

First of all, the concept of Chistian Nationalism is quite un-Biblical. Jesus preached, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” Luke 17:21. He did not say, “Get organized, grasp for power and force my principles on everyone else.” He taught that the way to spiritual life in His Kingdom meant committing oneself fully to His cause and His teachings of love, sacrifice and being a servant to those in need. He taught strongly against a self-promoting and self-serving religion. Furthermore, His Kingdom did not mean a narrow focusing on “three easy steps to get to Heaven,” which does not encourage real faith. Instead, His Kingdom is about spiritual renewal growing from genuine repentance and full commitment to the Gospel of Jesus, resulting in an ongoing spiritual relationship with God.

Christian Nationalism means forcing people to follow the values of some “Christians,” who seem to have forgotten the principles that Jesus actually taught and lived by. Jesus taught love which includes allowing people to make a choice. Jesus predicted that most people will not choose His way, the narrow way of truth and love, but that most will choose the wide, self-serving, easy way, or at least the way that looks easy. The bottom line is that Christianity has always been a matter of choice. We can pray for revival to sweep the nation, but we don’t get revival by passing “Christian” laws, which are too often fake Christian laws, since it is not Christian to force one’s values on other people.

I do believe we can and should vote our faith when it comes to passing laws that help the less fortunate, because these are laws that are positive and follow scripture, that tells us to “do good to all people,” (Galatians 6:10). The disturbing kind of forced fake Christian laws are those that deny people their freedoms and are being imposed on other people against their will. Just because many Christians believe any LGBTQ life style is un-Christian (and here, there is disagreement among Christians), that does not make it right to force those beliefs on other people, when the choices of LGBTQ people do not impact in a harmful way on other people. Besides which, Jesus taught us to love and treat with compassion everyone.

What I have heard from some leaders of the Christian Nationalism persuasion is that people of other religions would not be welcome to enter our country and would experience discrimination if they already live here. These policies are quite anti-Christian since they violate Jesus’ teachings to “treat other people the way you would want to be treated,” Mark 12:31, namely the Golden Rule. That Rule comes under the second greatest commandment mentioned both by Jesus and by the Apostle Paul, originating in the Law of Moses, namely to “love your neighbor as you love yourself,” Galatians 5:14b.

What many good Christians seem to be unaware of is that having a national religion has never worked well for Christianity. Look at the European nations that have a national Christian religion, like Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, most of the other European nations and even Russia. All of these nations are suffering from a greatly decreased number of people who profess to be Christian. For many, if not the majority of the people in those countries, having a national religion just means that they get married, have their babies baptized and are buried in the “Church,” but the Christian faith is quite meaningless in their everyday lives.

The number of European people who would call themselves Christian has dropped excessively in recent years. It was reported that in 2015 only around 5% on people in England attended church regularly and it’s thought to be worse now. In Italy, a large percent, 78%, claim to be Roman Catholic, but only 19 % attend church regularly and 31 % never did.  We are starting to see some of this in our own country in the low numbers of people attending church about 30% in 2022, or who claim to be Christian.

From my several years of work as a licensed counselor, I believe that there is an increase in the number of people who either think “I was baptized as a baby and go to church on Easter and at Christmas, so I’m a Christian, I guess” or who think “I got saved when I was young. I went to the altar and prayed a prayer, so I’m a Christian and of course I’ll go to Heaven” with little thought about applying genuine faith to their day to day lives. Is this genuine Christianity? People do not seem to know what Jesus’ teachings really are and this is dangerous for true Christianity.

Already, we have “Christian” legislators who vote with little integrity, making sure their vote is pleasing to special interest groups and extremely rich billionaires, instead of working in a Christian way to solve national problems, such as the immigration crisis or homelessness. They ignore the views of citizens as expressed in the polls, and fail at doing what is best for the country, focusing primarily on what is best for their party. These legislators seem to follow a philosophy of “the ends justify the means,” which is not Biblical. They overlook the lies and deceitfulness of current leaders, because they say those leaders will be good for the country. Deceit will never be good for our country! Having leadership that is weak in areas of integrity will not produce a Christian nation.  

I fear that Christian nationalism is leading to a “Christian” leadership combination of people who have no compassion for those they differ with, and people who are actually indifferent to true spiritual faith, but who use religious language to gain power for their own benefit. They do this in ways that are totally foreign to Jesus’ teaching that greatness comes from servanthood. He said “If you want to be great, learn to be the servant of all.”

I also fear that Christian nationalism would bring a danger of totalitarianism and we would likely end up with leaders who would push discrimination against minorities, as expressed by many MAGA groups, increasing national divisiveness. We would likely end up having more corrupt police and even more corrupted elected officials. True Christianity involving an active vibrant faith would become weaker and weaker.

I do believe that Christians should be involved in our national culture and our government, but as salt and light in the world, not to gain personal power or to force Christian beliefs on others, but to persuade others with love, working to benefit all Americans whether Christian or of other faiths. That is Christian love. We Christians should encourage our government to help the poor, not increase the wealth and power of the rich. The Bible condemns ultra rich people, who use their power to cheat and take advantage of the poor (James 5:1-4; Isaiah 58:3 and other passages). As Christians, let’s return to the actual teachings of the Bible instead of trying to force a nationalized Christianity on others.