Whether you are right wing, or left wing, liberal or conservative, Christian or atheist - Christian Nationalism is all the rage.
Scapegoat or Solution
Depending on who you talk to, Christian Nationalism is either the scapegoat of the country problems or a hopeful solution to the failure of secularism.
It is a theological problem in evangelicalism, or it is the historical approach of most Christians.
The main theologian of “CN” as it has come to be called is William Wolfe who wrote the book, The Case for Christian Nationalism. Wolfe and other signatories define the term in their official creed:
CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM is a set of governing principles rooted in Scripture’s teaching that Christ rules as supreme Lord and King of all creation, who has ordained civil magistrates with delegated authority to be under Him, over the people, to order their ordained jurisdiction by punishing evil and promoting good for His own glory and the common good of the nation
Thus Christian Nationalists take the ideas of the “Moral Majority” to their natural conclusion: they want political power. They want the government to “act Christianly” and unabashedly enforce Christian principles with the power of the state. This, they say, is the solution to the failure of modernity, or secularism.
Past Christians Were Unabashedly “Christian Nationalists”
You don’t need to be a self-professed CN like Wolfe to concede the point that most Christians in history were unabashed in their support of a Christian-like government:
Contrary to what many scholars have concluded, the founding era assumed Protestantism as the background condition for religious liberty.
American religious liberty in the early American Republic was a people-specific development. Though its foundation was something universal—Protestant principles—the application of these principles was Anglo-Protestant…In other words, American Christian nationalist is not a contradiction in terms but rather an appropriate label for those who identify with the old American Republic.
The Case for Christian Nationalism, Wolfe, 2022
While conceding the point that most Americans in history were influenced by Protestantism, and allowed its ethos to shape its culture and laws, I want to ask a different question than, “is Christian Nationalism historical?”
Rather I want to ask the question, “when the culture was ‘Christian,’ did it work?”
In other words, when Christians controlled the halls of governmental power, did it make the culture genuinely Christian, did it enforce the laws of the bible and make society more holy?
Does Christian Nationalism Work?
When the governments of the past enforced Christian principles by the power of the state, did the people become more holy? Was God honored?
Roman Empire
If we look at the example of the Ancient Roman Empire, it appeared that Christianity gained genuine power simply by being infectious in its ideas and example. In other words, the spiritual engine of evangelism and conversion by the Holy Spirit made it a power in terms of its numbers. Tertullian said this principle best,
“the Christian blood you spill is like the seed you sow, it springs from the earth again, and fructifies the more.”
Tertullian, The Apology, p. 143
The more they were mowed down by martyrdom, the more they prospered. But when Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in AD 313, the source of power shifted from sheer numbers, to the scepter of the Emperor. Christianity was a political force to be reckoned with, and on that basis, rather than necessarily the gospel’s doctrine, many accepted Christianity because of its influence and ability to get places in the empire.
You do not need to be a historian to recognize that when Christianity can do things for you, there will be an increase in people who want to look and sound Christian on that basis alone.
Christian Europe
Over the next millennia or so after the Edict of Milan, looking and sounding Christian was unquestionable in Europe. Heretics were punished by Protestant and Catholic governments alike.
But with the enlightenment, secularism did the same slow withering of Christian Europe and America as Christianity did to the Roman Empire - it won the hearts and minds of the elites and intellectuals, and trickled its teaching and ethos to the plebs.
The historic ‘Christian ideals,’ and doctrines became questioned, forgotten, and ignored by the populace in both historically Protestant and Catholic kingdoms.
Divine Right of Kings
The problem with Christian Nationalism is it is adopting the principle of the pagan Roman Empire toward Christianity, but with the dichotomy changed from paganism at the top and Christianity at the bottom, to paganism/secularism/hedonism at the bottom and Christianity at the top.
Christian Nationalists believe that human power works.
They believe that where the Romans failed to stamp out Christianity with the scepter, they will succeed at stamping out secularism, atheism, and hedonism, if they could only wield the scepter.
The State is a Bad Ally to Truth
I don’t think the problem is that if you punish sinners for sin publicly, you don’t change behavior. Clearly that “works” to some degree.
The problem is that top-down power doesn’t work as well as changing the internal direction of the soul from sinner to blood-bought saint.
When the heavy hand of government comes down in any direction, you might change behavior, you might accomplish something, but it’s usually not the ends the bible seeks to achieve.
My fear is not the first generation of hypothetical Christian Nationalists who somehow obtain the scepter, it’s the third generation who “in the name of the church” punish those who stand for God, the Scriptures, and truth, with the government’s power.
The History of Christian Nationalism is the History of Apostate Governments
You can look at the state churches of Scotland, England, and other places to see even Protestants who enforced supposedly biblical principles with the power of the state turned with each new regime to persecute the righteous.
The “Church of Scotland” forced the faithful by the power of their Parliament to come out and form “The Free Church of Scotland” because they would not accept an unqualified political appointee to the ministry. These men who stood against the parliament lost their church buildings, and living as ministers when they did so.
The “Church of England” ejected thousands of Puritan ministers in the late 17th century when they refused to use the Book of Common Prayer in their assemblies.
The Church of England also used the Courts of the State to persecute open-air preachers in the First Great Awakening because they called the state church’s ministers to be converted and were “unlicensed to preach.”
Even John Calvin in the days of the Reformation was, for a season, ejected from his pulpit in Geneva by the “Protestant” government of that city.
The Real Question
The real question is not, “wouldn’t it be great if our whole society was Christian?”
The answer is of course yes. But that’s not the problem with Christian nationalism.
It’s not ‘wouldn’t it be nice?’
It’s ‘does it actually work?’
Thankfully, the Christian Nationalist experiment is one of the most well documented attempts of government in history. We have far more theocracies than we do liberal democracies or secular republics. Most of the time, they are not friends of the truth, from Jeremiah, to Jesus, to the Puritans.
So, while we concede that it is a miserable thing for sin to go unpunished, I think it’s nice that we have the right to live our conscience according to the Scriptures. As long as that lasts.
If we lose the right to live our Bible-Conscience and the state locks us up for doing so, I’m not sure that the fix is “Christian Nationalism.”
The solution of the New Testament is closer to Tertullian’s idea of, “the Christian blood you spill is like the seed you sow, it springs from the earth again, and fructifies the more.”
Irony of ironies, it is Tertullian’s martyrs that tend to unintentionally create “Christian Nationalist” governments, rather than Constantine’s Edict creating Christians.
The solution then is the gospel, not the scepter.
Nate