Christian Nationalism Is Not What the Left Says It Is
In the Democrats’ desperate attempt to deflect attention from their increasingly senile Presidential candidate, one of the favorite strawmen arguments has become attempting to interject “Christian nationalism” into the debate as an abomination demanding avoidance at all cost. The left portrays Christian nationalism as white Angle-Saxon Protestantism on steroids; the automatic assumption that each of these elements by itself is evil and, when all brought together, make up a hideous force that demands stopping by all means necessary.
The more hysterical shrieking reactions, such as what MSNBC’s Joy Reid came up with in February 2024, are easily laughed off.
Some liberal commentators try to liken Christian nationalism to white supremacy and argue, as MSNBC's Joy Reid suggested on Feb. 20, that Christian nationalism means “shooting migrants at the border, full immunity for police to kill at-will ... terminating the Constitution, bombing Mexico,” and “stripping women of all of their personal rights.”
This is refuted by both Jesus’ words in John 14:
On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
And by Paul in his letter to the Colossians:
Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Over-the-top statements by Reid and the like, aside from providing blue meat to the faithful, are designed to trickle down through the public consciousness and are cemented into dogma. This is by design. The media screechers know their audience is minuscule. They are dependent on word of mouth to spread their false evangelism.
It's one of the many reasons conservatives must remain engaged in the world at large, seizing every opportunity to tell the truth so those who otherwise would remain ill-informed might at least have the opportunity to hear that which is accurate.
With that noted, back to the immediate topic.
To illustrate true Christian nationalism, here are two Scriptural passages not often considered in this context. Both are in the eighth chapter of Luke. The first is Jesus casting a multitude of demons out of a man and how the locals reacted.
It wasn’t favorably.
When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured. Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and left.
While chastising the locals for reacting with such a high fright to the miraculous is easy, it is also understandable. Before them was a man seen as incurable, one whose demonic possession was so powerful he could break chains; a man untamable and irredeemable. Now, here he was before them, healed.
Those whose knowledge of Christian nationalism comes solely from trickled-down misinformation will react with fear unless presented with the truth. Christian nationalism reflects not a legal mandate of Christianity’s fundamentals but rather a nation whose populace reflects Jesus’ teachings put into action.
Christian nationalism is honesty. It’s treating others how you want them to treat you. Christian nationalism is accepting responsibility for yourself and your actions. It is taking care of the poor and needy directly, not through perpetually overfunded and underperforming government efforts. Christian nationalism responds to the naysayers insisting it seeks to limit freedoms by pointing at the nation around us, with its societal decay and respect for others ever diminishing, saying, “You call this better?” Christian nationalism is not oppression or restrictions of individual freedoms. It is the wholehearted embrace of freedom.
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
The second illustration from Luke 8 is where Jesus raises a synagogue leader’s 12-year-old daughter from the dead. Note the difference in how Jesus tells those involved to respond to this miracle compared to casting out the demons from the possessed man. He tells the demon-possessed man to tell everyone what He has done for the man. He tells the girl’s parents to tell no one. Doubtless, the assembled mourners, who the Scripture tells us laughed at Jesus when He said she wasn’t dead but rather asleep, for they knew she was dead, were quite astonished when they saw the girl quite alive and doing what comes naturally to a 12 year old - namely eating.
This also conveniently dispelled any notion of her being a ghost. The incident doubtless led one and all to question their observational powers, if not their sanity. Why the different approaches?
Jesus told the demon-possessed man to tell everyone so they would learn their initial fears regarding Jesus were groundless. Jesus told the girl’s parents not to tell anyone because He didn’t want the people to know. Except for Lazarus, whose return to the living took place a few days before Jesus’ crucifixion, those He brought back to life had just died. This offered the possible explanation — not a correct one, but a possible one — that those He raised from the dead were not actually dead but unconscious or in a coma.
Jesus knowingly gave His detractors a reason to scoff. Had He walked into the local burial ground and cleaned house, it would have been quite difficult for the Pharisees to explain away. Jesus is the God of the living, as He said in Matthew 22:29-32.
Another possible reason relates to earlier in Luke when an imprisoned John the Baptist sent his disciples to Jesus so they could ask Him a question to which John already knew the answer: Are You the Messiah?
One suspects that even though he knew Jesus was the Messiah, John was hoping for a military leader in addition to a spiritual leader, one who would lead the people in driving out the hated Romans. Jesus told John’s disciples, after they had seen Him in action, to report back to John what they had seen. He knew John would get the picture.
Jesus isn’t in the nation-building or nation-saving business. Soul-saving, yes. Church building, most definitely. But that is as far as it goes. The nation is up to us. We are the ones who need to reestablish and preserve America’s heritage and freedoms. Christian nationalism is about us, as individuals, coming together in Jesus to make our country better than it is at present by putting His teachings into action. That is all.
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