Nationalism tends to present globalism as it’s opposite opponent. Now at its simplest, globalism is about how everyone is interconnected, politically, economically, culturally so that nations cannot make decisions in isolation. However, the term is often used pejoratively to suggest that there are those seeking to control the whole world for their own ends. Those people are often perceived as an economic elite and so, unsurprisingly the term is not just used pejoratively against capitalism but specifically as an antisemitic slur (because, guess who the conspiracy theorists think that this shadowy elite are).
It’s worth noting that it isn’t just nationalists who perceive globalism as a threat. There is opposition to this on the left as well as the right and so, you have the concept of international socialism as the rival to national socialism. This suggests that globalism is not the sole opposite and alternative to nationalism.
Why am I talking about globalism here? Well, one suggestion that has come my way is that globalism is the alternative to nationalism and whilst Christians tend to be negative about nationalism, it’s the globalist agenda or a world without borders or under a one world government that the Bible targets as sinister and dangerous. Isn’t this what the book of Revelation describes as the agenda of the anti-Christ?
The idea of an end times one world government originates from Revelation 13 and 17. Revelation 13 describes two beasts that exercise authority, religious, political and economic on behalf of a character referred to as “The Dragon.” The latter beast compels people to bear his mark or seal on their hands and foreheads and this is required for trading (more of that to come in a later article). So what is going on?
Well, first of all, when we see a creature described as a dragon, or perhaps as a serpent, our minds are meant to go back to Genesis 3 and to the serpent in the Garden of Eden that opposed God and sought to usurp Adam’s rule on behalf of God over creation. The serpent imagery is also associated fascinatingly with a number of ancient civilisations and empires from China to Egypt. It is therefore linked to the one who seeks to rival God but also as the one who seeks to raise up a rival to God’s people.
What about the beasts. Well, as Revelation 17 makes clearer, we are meant to remember that the vision was given into the context of the world of the Roman Empire. The things John describes in symbolic language are not alien concepts plucked out of a distant future but images, symbols and plotlines that were instantly recognisable to the people of his day, living around about AD70. John is describing Rome and the behemoth it was growing into, a powerful autocratic regime that commanded absolute loyalty and obedience and would demand religious worship as well as earthly loyalty.
So, it is not a distant, future end time empire that John is talking about in the first instance. That’s not to say that such an empire led by a powerful leader won’t exist at the point Christ comes back. It’s more that we don’t need to wait for that. Rather, Rome, that beastly and powerful regime that commanded obedience and worship was typical of all the empires that had come and would come in so far as these earthly empires seek absolute power and authority. Now perhaps some have been and will be better than others, especially where Christian faith has influence. However, whether it’s the Persian, Greek, Roman, Ottoman, British, Spanish, Russian/USSR or American empire, we can see in each of them this beast like nature. They come and go, they seek to offer a salvation, but they all ultimately fail. So, the reality is that we are all called to live in a world where such beasts exist and we are called to be faithful to the Lamb who was slain, the Lion of Judah, the true king of kings in that world. How do we do that? We do so by being witnesses to him, willing to lay down our lives for him. We don’t do that by seeking refuge in the proto new empires or the ruins of old empires that Nationalism and Christian Nationalism represent.
Faithroots 