You may recall that recently I responded to blogger Aaron Edwards’ questions posed to those who oppose Christian Nationalism. You can read my response here. I also shared the answers in response to his Facebook post. This drew some response. In particular one person was keen to insist that:
“you do need to have an alternative in mind, actually, if you’re to have the substantive or strong opinion on political matters that would be required to actually be against Christian Nationalism. It doesn’t need to be a hyper-specific label with a detailed map drawn out for your ideal pre-eschatological political order, but it needs to be something, otherwise your options are:
-to be indifferent enough to such matters that you don’t bother opposing a political vision as you seem to be here, or
-to be little different from a child in the midst of a tantrum, rejecting and complaining about any choice being offered
Leaving aside the overheated personalised rhetoric, it is worth noting that yes I do have an alternative to Christian Nationalism in mind. First of all, there are political alternatives to the extremes of globalist liberalism and to nationalism. I have friends who are socialists, I disagree with them but I recognise their position as an alternative to nationalism that is not “liberalism” nor “globalist”, though is internationalist (there’s a difference). Secondly, I personally come from within the Conservative or centre right tradition. This sits very distinct from the far or alt right and whilst within that broad umbrella, you might argue that there are some who hold to a nationalist flavour of politics, it is not true of all.
In any case, my brief reply was as follows:
hi Brian. Actually Christians have been getting on with that positive vision of making disciples and being for the good of the city where Jesus has placed them for a long time , well before a few people got noisy about Nationalism
Brian’s response was:
“ Sure, but, as I said Re: point 4, you can go about that in a way that more or less amounts to indifference regarding the political framework, or you can go about that in a way that results in actually having an idea as to what kind of framework is best for making disciples and benefits the city where Jesus has placed you. The former precludes objecting to Christian nationalism (among other things), and the latter entails putting a forward positive direction or agreeing, at least on a temporary basis, to some kind of direction that someone else has put forward. You’ve placed yourself in this latter camp.
So I asked him:
“what framework does Jesus offer?
This resulted in a lengthy and rather fruitless attempt to get a straight answer on the subject. At last count, the thread runs to 34 comments! We got stuff about it being the same as what is needed for loving your neighbour, reference to the Old Testament Ten Commandments and Case Law and finally when I asked him to just give me three citations of the framework Jesus offered, he listed the three quotes where Jesus told us to love our neighbours. So, we did not get any specific reasoning from Scripture. Instead what I was treated to were suggestions that I must be confused, questions about whether or not I knew my Old Testament and most bizarrely, that I:
proved [myself] to be a hyper-Arian to an extent that would likely have disgusted Arius.”
I’m not sure where on earth he got that from but out of generosity, I’m going to attempt an hypothesis. As Christians we believe that all of Scripture is God’s Word. In that respect, it is Christ’s Word, indeed, he is the living word. So, it may be that my interlocutor was attempting to say that because the Law is the word of God the Son, this answered my question. I note firstly that a generic “it’s in all the OT” really doesn’t engage the question in the spirit of “let’s look at your arguments together to test them”. However, in any case, it should be a well understood convention that if I ask him about what Jesus said, I’m talking about the recording words of the Incarnate Son in the Gospels during his earthly ministry as fully God and fully man.
There’s a reason for that question. We can of course (and in a conversation with him, I would want to) move from the words of Jesus in the Gospels to the torah and Prophets just as we can move forwards to see what Paul and Peter say in their letters. However, we want to start with the words of Jesus because he is the one who commissioned us to go and make disciples. So, we would expect him, if, he was thinking of a political vehicle and framework for that mission to have at least said something about it.
And, here’s my point. He doesn’t. There is one of the many big gaping holes in the Christian Nationalist argument. Now, what does Jesus actually say? Well he says:
I’m sending you out as sheep among wolves.” (Matthew 10:16)
That doesn’t sound much like he is sending us out with some political framework and power to protect and promote us. However, he reassures us of two things. First he responds to Peter’s confession of him as Christ and says:
on this rock, I will build my church.” (Matthew 16:18).
Then at the very point that he commissions his disciples, he tells them:
““All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[b] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Note here two important and fantastic statements that envelope the command. First, that all authority is given to Jesus and second that he will always be with us. There’s the framework. It’s Christ himself. We don’t need a political framework.
We can go on to add to this by looking at how John’s Gospel talks about the sending of the Spirit to:
convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment:” (John 16:8)
And we can also remember that Jesus taught us to pray to the Father for his kingdom to come and his will to be done.
All of this should remind us that if we have the glorious triune God with us and in us then we don’t need anything else.
You can read my detailed engagement with Christian Nationalism in my e-book, Against Christian Nationalism.
Faithroots 