Christian Nationalism seems to be getting a lot of attention these days. Obviously, there are many non-Christians who don’t think much of the idea. But not all Christians agree with it either, and question whether it’s even Biblical. Of course, it may partly depend on what one thinks it means.
In my understanding, one way to think of Christian Nationalism is that it seeks to establish a national framework of laws and behaviors that promote personal and societal flourishing through the adoption of Christian values and behaviors, possibly reflecting what some people believe to be the original vision of the nation’s founders.
Thus, it can be thought of as a sort of legalism – religious values and ideas are encoded into laws that constrain people’s behavior. However, this isn’t necessarily the sort of legalism that asserts that correct behavior is necessary for salvation rather than a result of it. It merely tries to establish a flourishing society through the change of people’s behavior without there necessarily having been a change of heart.
Of course, we need to have laws in order to protect people who are susceptible to being abused by others – the unborn, the poor, oppressed minorities, and so on. This would also include just about everyone when we think about crimes like theft and murder. Few would argue about the need for laws in these cases.
But some things, like matters of fiscal policy, perhaps environmental concerns, the behavior of corporations, sexual behavior, and so on, are so complex that it is often not clear what the legislated behavior should be, although people often have strong opinions. In other words, there is a lot more disagreement about what is unambiguously good in these cases.
The problem is that these cases, even when clear for Christians, are not necessarily clear for non-Christians.
Thus, non-Christians do not necessarily see the laws as leading to a thriving society and thriving individuals. As a result, the imposition of such laws may seem arbitrary and even harmful to them.
Even if the laws were good, were implemented perfectly, and so were truly beneficial for everyone, the perception of unbelievers would be negative.
The problem this causes is that unbelievers need to know about Jesus more than they need to live flourishing secular lives, and this negative perception can become a barrier to sharing the gospel. To the extent that this sort of legal framework does represent Christian Nationalism, then Christian Nationalism itself has become a barrier to the gospel.
I think this is important because, as has been pointed out several times on this blog, I believe that evangelism is a critical part of the Christian faith, and although it isn’t the only thing that’s important, it seems to be the most neglected. The shrinking impact of the faith on people’s lives, church attendance, baptism numbers, and many other things all point to the ineffectiveness of recent evangelism efforts.
Perhaps this is another example of secularism creeping into the church – the idea that we don’t need individual spiritual transformation in order to bring the kingdom because we can get by using worldly tools like secular laws. This, of course, is one of the things that can lead the church body to become lukewarm.
In this case, if we want to see the kingdom be increasingly manifested today, I believe that we need to go back to the original spiritual principles laid out by Jesus and the early church in Scripture. To the extent that this has an effect on our national legal system, it seems that we should strive to make it as amenable as possible to spreading the gospel. Then we can fulfill our responsibility to transform the world by making disciples, rather than making obedient citizens.
Exploring Antioch 