“Christian nationalist” (or its synonym “MAGA Christians”) has, at times, been applied to any Christian who expresses a political opinion or votes Republican. Yet not every Christian who votes or is otherwise involved in politics is a Christian nationalist.
Such a broad application can discourage Christians from participating in U.S. politics. While we should resist the broad application of the term, we also should recognize that Christian nationalism is both real and problematic for the church.
James Spencer
Borrowing from George Orwell, who describes nationalism as “power hunger tempered by self-deception,” Christian nationalism may be understood as a movement seeking to gain political power through a fictional vision of America supported by selective (and inappropriate) uses of biblical texts and other Christian terms.
The selective use of the Bible and other Christian terms advances a distorted form of Christianity. Many people, some Christians included, seem incapable of distinguishing genuine Christian claims and aims from those of Christian nationalism. As such, it seems appropriate that we may speak of “harder” and “softer,” or perhaps “self-aware” and “coincidental,” versions of Christian nationalism.
Regarding the differing claims of Christianity and Christian nationalism, we see that Christ is indispensable to the former and nonessential to the latter.
“Christian nationalists have their own set of morals and values that they describe (wrongly) as ‘Christian.’”
For instance, Neighborly Faith found that “Christian nationalist adherents” strongly agree with the statement, “The true culture of the United States is fundamentally Christian.” Such a claim, however, is unintelligible from the perspective of the Christian faith because “Christian” denotes the mixed multitude of Jews and non-Jews united in Jesus Christ by faith, as well as their shared beliefs and practices governed by the biblical text and refined through repentance.
A “Christian” culture, then, would be the medium in which those united in Christ display God’s vision of a meaningful life by learning to live under Christ’s authority. It is not a culture inspired by biblical ideas abstracted from their theological context.
Christian nationalist claims may be by biblical texts, but they are not governed by the biblical text. Christian nationalists have their own set of morals and values that they describe (wrongly) as “Christian.”
With regard to aims, we see similar confusion, in part, because both Christians and Christian nationalists often participate in politics. Christian political participation must be both prophetic and theological in the sense that it reminds politicians and citizens at large that the government’s authority is delegated by the Triune God. The goal is not to leverage the coercive power of the state to enforce morality, but to participate in politics in a way that glorifies the Triune God even if doing so results in political losses.
“The goal is not to leverage the coercive power of the state to enforce morality, but to participate in politics in a way that glorifies the Triune God even if doing so results in political losses.”
For Christian nationalists, politics is a means of accumulating the power they “need” to determine the course of the nation. Yet, as Joseph Mangina notes in his commentary on Revelation: “The church that imagines it has a successful strategy for confronting the principalities and powers on their own terms had better think again. It is not only that the church, by submitting to the court of human judgment rather than to the decrees of the just judge, will lose its own soul; ironically, it will not even gain the world.” Nations and, by extension, their governing authorities, are durable but not eternal. Unlike Christians, who must be willing to lose the world’s game as part of being faithful to Christ, Christian nationalists mobilize adherents by charting a course to victory even if that course minimizes or completely ignores the necessity of faithful Christian testimony.
Christians are not opposed to winning, but to winning on the world’s terms by using the world’s tactics. Such tactics are problematic because, while effective, they reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of reality.
In The Matter with Things, Ian McGilchrist writes, “We take the success we have in manipulating it (the world) as proof that we understand it. But that is a logical error: to exert power over something requires us only to know what happens when we pull the levers, press the button, or utter the spell.” He goes on to suggest, “It is hardly surprising, therefore, that while we have succeeded in coercing the world to our will to an extent unimaginable even a few generations ago, we have at the same time wrought havoc on that world precisely because we have not understood it.”
Christian nationalists, or any other political group, may well get the political power they seek. However, when one group or another knows which levers to pull to get what they want, they may also be contributing to a false view of the world that breeds chaos rather than order.
Christian nationalism is characterized by the sort of bravado that makes promises and encourages actions that are supposed to “win the day.” Yet, Christians should be wary of such bluster because, as Michael Gorman suggests, “The grand lie does not appear to start as deception, but only as rhetorical exaggeration.”
“Faithful Christian testimony cannot be inextricably tied to political participation of some sort.”
Christian nationalism is not short on “rhetorical exaggeration,” often misapplying biblical passages and theological claims to paint a distorted picture of God’s relationship to the United States and the sort of action Christians must take to return the United States to its “Christian” foundations (whatever that might mean). The trouble is that faithful Christian testimony cannot be inextricably tied to political participation of some sort.
Faithful Christian action may involve political activities, but we also need to recognize the potential downsides of political involvement for Christian witness. While Christians may be reviled for good behavior (1 Peter 3:13-17), Christians also can act in ways that end up causing God’s name to be reviled (1 Timothy 6:1; Titus 2:5). This possibility requires Christians to exercise discernment even when pursuing legitimate concerns.
In the end, Christianity, unlike Christian nationalism, does not pursue political influence (or control) by any means necessary. Instead, Christianity calls those who bear the name of Christ to discipleship. Discipleship does not guarantee success when success is defined on the world’s terms. Instead, discipleship is the way of life to which the church commits as it seeks to point to and glorify the Triune God.
James Spencer serves as president of Useful to God and president of D. L. Moody Center. His newest book is Serpents and Doves: Christians, Politics, and the Art of Bearing Witness. He previously published Christian Resistance: Learning to Defy the World and Follow Jesus, Useful to God: Eight Lessons from the Life of D. L. Moody, Thinking Christian: Essays on Testimony, Accountability, and the Christian Mind, as well as co-authoring Trajectories: A Gospel-Centered Introduction to Old Testament Theology.
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