White Evangelicals Three Times More Likely to Support Christian Nationalism
"The US Government should declare America a Christian nation."
"US laws should be based on Christian values."
"If the US moves away from our Christian values, we will not have a country anymore."
"Being Christian is part of being truly American."
"God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society."
In a recent survey of more than 6,000 Americans by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institute, 64% of white Evangelical Christians were found to be either firm supporters of Christian nationalism, or sympathetic to it, from agreement with statements such as these. Among Protestants of color, 52% are either considered adherents or in sympathy with Christian nationalist beliefs.
Christian Nationalism is a Heresy Without Biblical Support
In my Evangelical background, such statements would be taken for granted as true, without any question of their veracity and without requiring any of the support from the biblical text that other doctrinal statements require among them. Most Evangelicals are biblical literalists, believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of the biblical text, and develop their doctrine and theology out of this approach to interpreting the Bible.
But when it comes to Christian Nationalism, which a majority of them see as a matter of settled orthodoxy, the threshold for biblical support, or for historical evidence, drops down to almost nothing. And if biblical text it cited for support, it is usually something from the Old Testament taken completely out of context.
I do not believe that ignorance of American History, by any reasonably intelligent, patriotic American, can be excused. Students should not be able to graduate from high school or get a GED without a clear understanding of the formation and drafting of the Constitution, including understanding the intentions of the founders, specifically Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, when it came to clarifying freedom of religion and conscience. There is nothing at all in the Constitution, or indeed in almost any foundational text related to the beginnings of this nation, that remotely resembles any kind of Christian Nationalism, or establishing a nation based on biblical theology and Christian values.
The influence of Christianity was anticipated and expected, but never mandated or enforced, precisely because the founding fathers had observed, and experienced, the corruption of the church under the control of monarchs using it as a political wedge, all but drowning out its mission and purpose as a body of Christ. In fact, it was those who were confessing Christians by practice, and who were Evangelical in their doctrine and theology, and who had been persecuted without mercy by the established state church, who petitioned Jefferson to place a "wall of separation" between church and state. Jefferson's letter to these Christians, the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, is the best evidence supporting the fact that the founding fathers never intended to establish a "Christian nation."
Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association,
But the ignorance of the biblical text, and the ability to interpret and apply it in its proper context and meaning, is inexcusable among people who claim that one of their core doctrines, which they claim sets them apart from "other" Christians, is belief that the Bible is without error and is infallible in its authority over Christian faith and practice. It is, in fact, much easier to discern from the biblical text, especially from the words of Jesus himself, as well as those of the two key first century Apostles of the church, Peter and Paul, that the ministry work of the church was of a spiritual nature, not needing the secular, temporal power of government.
Christians were instructed to acknowledge and respect the power of the government by both Apostles, recognizing that all governments exist because God allows them to do so, in spite of their flaws and their lack of acknowledgement of his existence. But they were not to depend upon that power to achieve their mission and purpose, and that is made clear, not only by the Apostles, but by Jesus himself, who, in his rejection of the temptation to use worldly power to advance his kingdom, declared, "My kingdom is not of this world." Jesus never challenged or rebelled against the rulers who sent him to his crucifixion, as did the generations of Christians who did not rebel or resist the government's attempts to persecute them and eliminate their influence in its first two centuries of existence.
The covenant between human beings and God, established by Jesus and outlined in the New Testament, is an individual one, offering redemption from sin following conviction, repentance and receiving grace through faith in Jesus. The greatest period of evangelism, winning converts to faith in Christ, occurred during the two hundred year period between the time the last book of the New Testament was written and the reign of Constantine officially ended the persecution of Christians. That makes it pretty clear that God never intended the church to be the dominant power in the state, controlling the government so that it could achieve its mission and purpose. When the church is controlled by the state, conversion is a matter of politics, not faith.
Anglo-Israelism and Other Forerunners of Christian Nationalism
At the core of Christian Nationalism is white supremacy. The racist idea that white, Europeans are the "chosen" people of God in the same way that the Jewish people were the chosen people of God in the Old Testament was spread across the American frontier by untrained, uneducated individuals who were chosen to be pastors and preachers because there was no one else available. Being God's "chosen" for Jewish people did not mean they were racially superior to others, though through their history, events occurred which are attributed to God's judgment on them for thinking that way, and not fulfilling their intended purpose, which was to testify to the world of God's existence, and that he was the only God.
The idea that white European settlers in America were superior to the native Americans, because of perceived differences in culture, and superior to Africans, for the same reason, let to the decimation of the natives and the enslavement of the Africans, neither practice of which is consistent with any biblical teaching, though the Bible was distorted and taken out of context to justify both. But the idea that whites were "God's chosen" spread across the frontier through the churches. It was reinforced by uninformed preaching which took the Bible way out of its context, applying a fundamentalist, literalist perspective to what justified taking land away from native Americans and destroying them for fighting to defend the last vestiges of their own culture.
So the phrases, like those cited in the Baptist News Global article above, have become embedded in the rhetoric of Evangelicals where they have hardened into false theology and doctrine. The idea that Christians need political favor and control to evangelize is completely counter to the Christian gospel of Jesus and is an evil idea that subverts true Christianity, turning it into something that Jesus never intended it to be.
Christian Nationalism is Counter-Productive to Christian Evangelism
Like virtually nowhere else in the world, except where there is a free church in a free state, Christianity in America has thrived beyond what it ever did in places where it was co-opted by the national government. Churches were established out of major revivals, built their own buildings out of their own offerings and not government assistance, and developed their own ministries under complete religious freedom. People participate in churches by choice, not obligation, and Christianity has thrived under religious freedom and separation of church and state in America as it has not done anywhere else.
Madison, who had a theological education, was probably one of the few founders who saw how detrimental it was to the church to be connected to the state, and how un-Christian society became under the influence and control of the state church. His perspective was prophetic in setting American Christianity on a path toward revival and evangelism that has been all-pervasive in terms of how Christianity has influenced this country.
Eliminating a free conscience, like Christian Nationalism would do, would also remove the power of spiritual conviction and repentance, and Christian "conversion" would become a matter of political expedience and coercion, having no genuine convictions of its own. Many Evangelicals see the existence of the church as a bulwark against evil spirits in a war between good and evil, God and Satan. In that context, Christian Nationalism would be a "tool of the devil" to weaken the church by rendering its evangelistic outreach ineffective.
It is also, by definition, heresy. Everything Jesus taught flies in the face of its basic premises. The assumption that our prosperity is tied directly to the number of Christians we have and our national adherence to Christian morality is also heresy, not taught anywhere in the Bible and, in fact, contrary to Biblical teaching. If American prosperity is tied to its being a "Christian nation", then how is the prosperity of Singapore, which is significantly higher than that of the US in terms of GDP, explained, where fewer than 15% of the population professes any Christian faith at all? Or Japan, one of the most prosperous nations in the world, with one of the smallest percentages of Christian population?
Economic prosperity is not what the Bible's writers meant to equate with "blessing." That, too, is a belief far out of step with the Christian gospel. This whole perspective, or "worldview," opposes Christian teaching, morality and the gospel of Jesus. The idea of a religious belief having a favored status in a democracy the values freedom of conscience is also anti-American. Fortunately, there are those within the Evangelical branch of American Christianity who have developed well reasoned, and Biblically supported positions against it. Let's just hope there are always a majority of voters, Christian or otherwise, who reject candidates who are its proponents.
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