I’m currently listening to a podcast presented by Aaron Edwards and “Bob of Speaker’s corner” where they are seeking to set up a debate on Christian Nationalism. The idea is that they are inviting all comers to turn up on their zoom call and debate with them.. It sounds like a rather fraught approach to debate and discussion but we’ll see how it goes. You can watch to see for yourself below.
In any case, what I want to pick up with here is some of their preliminary discussion because they start by debating their own differences. Both are advocating for Christian Nationalism but both have differing definitions. Edwards is that we are
“to Christianise (or disciple the nations, as nations, in Jesus’ name.”
Whereas, Bob’s is that the church is itself a nation, it’s God’s nation and that we are grafted into Israel.
Now, it’s worth making my own preliminary observations here. First of all, it is helpful to ask people “what do you mean by x.” However, that doesn’t exist in a kind of relativist vacuum. Christian Nationalism cannot just mean whatever you want it to. It’s an idea that has been developed over time with a term that has had specific usage both in 1940s South Africa and in noughties America prior to getting air time in the UK with that really kicking off in the last few years. And what that means is that we can step back and look at how it has been used. In my little book “Against Christian Nationalism”[1], I note that there are variations within the overall movement, just as there are within Reformed thinking, the charismatic movement, Federal Vision etc. However, there is a commonality which enables you to engage with the concept as a whole rather than as lots of different splinters.[2] This is summed up when Aaron suggests that in practice both of their definitions will arrive at the same place, just by slightly different routes. Incidentally, I suggest that this is likely to be the new Christendom 2.0 that Doug Wilson and others from a Federal Vision background speak of, the Christian nation across the world, made up of Christian nations around the world.[3]
Bob argues that the Christian nation is demonstrated by the way that Peter in the New Testament speaks of us as a holy nation and Paul in Romans 11 of the church being grafted into Israel. This means we are a people group with our own needs, culture, neighbours etc and therefore should be using political means to support our own ends. Aaron agrees that Scripture speaks of God’s people in this way. However, he argues that this is different to how God speaks of nations. He sees nations as being something that is part of God’s plan, going back to Genesis 10-11 and Babel.
He also goes on to argue that Christians seem to have been persuaded against this idea of nations as good by liberalism and by a misunderstanding of Paul’s statement that there is neither Jew nor Gentile. Edwards points out that Paul also says that there is neither male nor female in the same place, yet gender still exists, so nations still exist. It’s that specific question that I wanted to address here.[4]
It’s worth remembering the context and what Paul is addressing there, something I’m sure Aaron and Bob will agree on. The aim was to challenge behaviour in Galatia where Gentiles were excluded from table fellowship. Paul’s argument is that there is one new people because we are justified by faith and so divisions are not permitted. The rhetorical force is that our new identity creates a unity that overrides any prior divisions. In fact, we might argue that we should interpret the statement rhetorically rather than literally. Ironically, it is the liberal who tends to go for the most literalist reading of Galatians 3:38. There is the point, Evangelicals are not literalists in that kind of way. Fundamentalists are literalists, they treat the text literally and say “therefore x must be so.” Liberals are actually literalist too in their exegesis. However, their response is that if the text literally says something “that cannot be so and so we must choose our own interpretation now.” It’s at the level of hermeneutics that they go awry. However, that’s a detour from the point.
The point is this, of course, we do not believe that maleness and femaleness is literally lost. However, because the central point is not about whether distinctions are lost, we should not assume either that in the other two examples that the distinctions and divisions are meant to be. So, we do not say “because there are still men and women after Galatians 3:28, there must also be slaves and masters” and nor do we say “because there are no longer slaves and masters, there is no longer male and female.” Instead we recognise that the text isn’t answering that type of question. All of this means that in terms of the question of whether there are meant to be ethnic distinctions that Galatians 3:28 is not designed to answer that question.
I would observe though that the three categories differ. The male-female distinction goes back to creation, although arguably the Fall does affect that. The slave-master distinction reflects something that came after the Fall, is a consequence of it and is not good but for a time God allowed it but put restrictions in place around it. I also believe that this is something very clearly not meant to be part of the new creation order post Christ’s resurrection. The existence of the nations is something that wasn’t there at creation but God does provide for post Fall. We need that perspective when trying to understand their place in the world today. And to disappoint you, I’m not going to answer the question one way or another in this post. You’ll have to work that one out on your own.
What I did want to do though is come back to Bob and Aaron’s debate about whether the Church is a nation. Aaron says “yes but not like the nations of the world around us.” I agree and would push it further, or rather turn it around. God’s people are the archetype of nation and the nations of the world will therefore be a bit like that nation.
[1] Against christian nationalism
[2] Dave Williams, Against Christian Nationalism, 3.
[3] See Dave Williams, Against Christian Nationalism, 16.
[4] Galatians 3:28.
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