What is Christian Nationalism?
The Washington Post reported this week that Trump’s four years in office have sparked a rise of “Patriot Churches.”
To help readers better understand the subject, The Christian Chronicle asked three scholars to weigh in. Each responded to the same questions independently. The scholars are:
• Jeremie Beller serves as congregational minister for the Wilshire Church of Christ in Oklahoma City and as an adjunct professor of communication for Oklahoma Christian University. His Ph.D. dissertation focused on religion and racism.
• Tanya Smith Brice serves as dean of the College of Professional Studies at Bowie State University in Maryland. She is the author of “Reconciliation Reconsidered: Advancing the National Conversation on Race in Churches of Christ.”
• Lee Camp serves as professor of theology and ethics at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn. He is the author of “Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians.”
Question: What is Christian nationalism?
Beller: Christian nationalism is the intertwining of the Kingdom of God with the kingdoms of men. In the American context, it is often displayed by describing America through language reserved for the Kingdom of God.
For instance, to speak of America as a “city on a hill” borrows from Jesus’ image for God’s kingdom. The marriage between patriotism and righteousness further blurs the line between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the world.
Brice: It is a form of civil religion that places one’s earthly citizenship above one’s obligation as a follower of Christ.
Camp: It’s a perversion of Christian eschatology. It perverts the gospel in at least two ways:
• One, by falsely giving to a nation-state a Messianic identity. The nation-state, and the interests of the nation-state, are seen as the primary mechanism for “saving” human history. Thomas Jefferson called the United States “the world’s best hope.” Abraham Lincoln said that the unity of the U.S. and its form of government is “the last best hope of earth.”
Woodrow Wilson said that he believed that he would live to see the day in which America would reach all its hopes and would say, “At last, the world knows America as the savior of the world!” Donald Trump said, “We must keep America first in our hearts. … And we must always keep faith in America’s destiny — that one nation, under God, must be the hope and the promise and the light and the glory among all the nations of the world!” All of these are classic examples of the Messianic pretense which characterizes nationalism.
• Two, by embracing Satan’s third temptation of Christ: to take up the way of might and “greatness” as the way of saving the world.