It is high time we ceased calling nationalism “Christian.” There is nothing Christian about American nationalism. Christians, especially, should lead the way.
The origin of the name “Christian” is recorded in Acts 11:26: “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” A quick perusal of the context in which that assertion is made goes a long way to exposing the “Christian” in American nationalism as a foil and patent subterfuge.
Michael Friday
To get the fullest meaning of “Christian,” and to discern once for all that it has no place sitting next to “nationalism,” we need an appreciation of who were the Antiochene disciples. We need the full context in which Acts 11:26 sits. It begins at verse 19 and continues past verse 30 into the first few verses of chapter 12. Ending at verse 30, however, grants adequate context.
Here are 10 observations from Acts 11:19-30 that should enable a permanent divorce of “Christian” from “nationalism” – which its “unequally yoked marriage” was never on, from the start.
One
The people who were first called “Christians” were enemies of the state, not friends.
The description of the church at Antioch begins (vs.19) with their being scattered and displaced by state violence and persecution. The first Christians were not celebrated by the state as are Paula White, Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress and Al Mohler; no, they were persecuted by the state, as are Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, U.S. Army Chief of Chaplains Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., and even Pope Leo XIV. Add an assortment of Mainline and evangelical Christians, such as John Pavlovitz and Jim Wallis.
“The first Christians were not celebrated by the state.”
Suffering under state persecution, imprisonment and even execution as an icon of true “Christianity” continues into the early part of Acts 12. Not even Peter could escape. Simply put, true Christians shall be — like Jesus was — enemies of the state, especially where the state is wicked, brutal and corrupt.
Two
The first “Christians” told the good news about the Lord Jesus — not about Caesar or Caesar’s victories or armies (vs.20). It is an affront not only to Christianity but also to Jesus Christ himself to hear America’s most unqualified and woefully immature Secretary of Defense ever, as well as America’s even worst Commander-in-Chief ever, make a caricature of their offices, claiming “Glory to God!” and boasting about the unwarranted and unprovoked death and destruction they have devilishly wrought on 170 school girls among several other thousands, as the “good news of Jesus Christ.” What??!!
A nation propelled by imperial, colonial and hegemonic power to subdue everyone else, to bully other nations, to threaten to take their sovereign lands and countries, is an icon of Caesar, not Christ.
American nationalism is not Christian.
Three
The power on which Christians depend is God’s — not the state’s or some rogue with Caesarian designs (vs.21). Julius Caesar loved to be attended with fawning flattery, gifts, awards and other people’s trophies and prizes. All this buttressed in Caesar what leadership scholars call referent power. Referent power is more imagined than real; yet, it translates into real and dangerous power when given to a tyrant.
The people fawning around America’s most corrupt and felonious wannabe Caesar are seeking benefits from his power (all of which is the people’s power which he has commandeered into his own). It is a betrayal to watch clergy join the fawning crowd, seeking the power of the corrupt, not of the Christ. That is not Christian; it is nationalism, American style.
Acts 11:21 asserts that “the Lord’s hand was with” the first Christians at Antioch. Now, get this (and use a little superimposed imagination here): These are the people who scattered under persecution, fleeing ICE, fleeing the poverty inflicted on them by the discontinuation of SNAP and USAID. These are the people displaced by war, drug wars and unrest in other countries where previous and current American Caesars unjustly interfered, resulting in those nations’ destabilization and their people’s eventual arrival on American shores and borders as refugees, asylum-seekers and as simply desperate, weary, undocumented and sometimes illegal immigrants.
Had America not interfered somewhere in 1953, a 1979 would not have happened. Had America not smashed a deal in 2017, a 2026 would not be ostensibly and pretextually required.
“These first Christians are the people impoverished and harrowed by the state and by the abuse of Caesar’s power and empire.”
These first Christians are the people impoverished and harrowed by the state and by the abuse of Caesar’s power and empire. And yet, it is precisely this that delivers them into the power of the Lord’s hand, a deliverance that — most Christians will tell you — is experienced only in suffering. It is not experienced in the fake, faltering and foundering façade of state power.
Four
If the power on which Christians depend is the Lord’s and not the state’s, consequently the power that Christians shall covet and use shall not be their own or the state’s; it shall be the Lord’s. Then, if it is the Lord’s, such power never shall be used to abuse, oppress, exclude, hurt, deprive or harm others, as politically motivated human power always does.
The numbers and categories of people egregiously targeted for harm by the abuse of state power between January 2016 and January 6, 2021; and again, from January 2025 to the present day are breathtakingly alarming. From Southern District of New York attorneys, to congressmen and senators, to police officers who protected the Capitol on January 6, to women and girls seeking health care, to everybody else seeking health care, to immigrants, both legal and illegal, to victims of violence, victims of the “Epstein Class,” to Cassidy Hutchinson, to Black voters, to secretaries of state who protect all voters, to food-insecure people, to LGBTQ people, to female military servants more qualified than their secretary of “war crimes” — the people and categories of people harmed by this nefarious and malicious administration are countless.
“They are the quintessential manifestation of antichrists.”
This is not Christian. This is diabolic. Christians do not abuse power in these ways. All the agents of this current American government — be they in the executive, legislature or the judiciary — and all their supporters who use power like this and declare it in the name of Jesus are liars. They are the quintessential manifestation of antichrists. This is not Christian. They are not Christian.
Five
People who are Christians remain, as did the Antioch Christians, true to the Lord (vs.23). Their allegiance was to the Lord, neither to a country or government or political party or political figure. The Antioch disciples held no allegiance to Caesar. The Americans who rabidly support the most heinous, immoral, soulless, cruel, spiteful, infernal and irreligious man ever to hold presidential office, and his equally fiendish and malevolent government, may call themselves Trumpians, felonians, corruptians and yes, even Americans! But for the love of God, they are not Christians.
Six
Any central figure in Christian communities shall be, as was the case in Antioch, “a good man (or woman), full of the Holy Spirit and faith,” and that person shall be found engaging others in the faith and in the Lord, rather than in some political pursuits or fake religious pursuits that are patently partisan and power-abusing (vs.24). They shall not be panderers to Caesar or Caesar’s mascots. They shall be good people.
Goodness does not express itself in lies or in vitriolic declarations, tweets, press conferences and blistering governmental policies. It does not defend NATO when you’re a senator and kill NATO when you are secretary of state. Good men do not order the extrajudicial killings of a hundred innocent people in the Caribbean Sea. Good men are not grifters, grafters and greedy.
“Goodness does not express itself in lies or in vitriolic declarations.”
Seven
The new coinage, “Christian” (vs.26) was a nickname, meaning “little Christs.” It was meant to be derogatory, to express disgust at how much these people imitated Jesus, from many people who still had no interest in Jesus.
Their disgust was better affirmation of their authenticity than admiration. Their keen resemblance to Jesus invoked a derogatory nickname.
While the likes of the people heading the American nationalism that some dare to call Christian may invoke derogatory names all right, those shall be nothing named after Jesus or Christ. These people — some politicians, some religious snake-oil peddlers — who despise Muslims, LGBTQ, immigrants, liberals and God knows who else, resemble not Jesus, but the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin and the backroom deal-maker handling 30 pieces of silver plus a 747 jet and billions of Saudi dollars, while using state power to crush and persecute true believers.
Eight
Authentic Christian communities read the looming dangers of the future rather than revel in the perceived triumphs of the present. Acts 11:27-28 shows that around the time the disciples were being nicknamed “Christian,” prophets spoke up.
These were no Paula Whites, anointing Herod, Pilate or Caesar as Jesus equivalents. They were serious readers of the national climate. They saw a famine was ahead, which turned out to happen as predicted. Nationalists see fake glories in the present; Christians see dangers ahead precisely because they interpret the shortages, shortcomings and sins of the present. It is what thousands of Christians did throughout 2024, warning about the “famine” ahead should nationalists elect a convict, crook and moral trainwreck as president.
Nine
In the very first weeks of the church’s birth (Acts 2:42-47 and elsewhere in the book) and in Paul’s two letters to the Corinthians, Christian communities care for one another, providing resources for daily living.
“This kind of American ‘Christian’ will say they see healing in the Bible, but not health care.”
“Christian” Americans assert America is Christian country. Were these American “Christians” present on Pentecost Day, the 3,000 added to the church might have been chased “back to where they came from” out of Jerusalem. This kind of American “Christian” will say they see healing in the Bible, but not health care.
Even Mexico, whom American nationalists consider beneath them, now has the promise of universal health care. In Mexico at the border in Tijuana, I visited several churches that transform their sanctuaries and facilities into living accommodations as soon as worship is over, and for the rest of the week, to take care of people dumped unceremoniously by ICE with nowhere to go.
On our side of the border, we watch ICE — an agency of the “Christian” state — beat, jail, shoot and kill people to whom Mexicans give hospitality, love and care.
Ten
Above all, Antioch was clearly a diverse community — predominantly Gentile, but welcoming of Jews, Gentiles and others. Nobody claimed territory and no one chased anybody away in the name of Jesus — quite unlike what is done here in America by the people who hypocritically shout the name of Jesus.
Simply put, religious nationalism is wickedness. Those who perpetuate it are wicked. Nationalism is foreign to Christ Jesus. That is the real alien, not people from elsewhere, created in God’s image.
Religious nationalism is a lie. To call it “Christian” is a damned and dastardly lie.
Michael Friday serves as executive minister of the American Baptist Churches of Greater Indianapolis and is author of the book, And Lead Us Not Into Dysfunction: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, of Church institutions and Their Leaders. He has served Baptists in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and the USA, and is a member of the BWA Commissions on Healthy Churches and Gender, Racial and Economic Justice.