Pray Network Forum

Christian Nationalism - Part 2

Should we engage society?

In my last blog post I talked about the theological error of Christian nationalism, and its danger to Christianity because it undermines evangelism and attempts social reform through the use of power.  Having stated what I think is wrong, I feel the need to suggest a way forward.  The next couple of blogs will address that.

First, should Christians be concerned with social reform? If you look at our history, we discover that modern Evangelicals defined themselves as the socially engaged version of conservative Protestantism as they separated from fundamentalism after World War II.  Perhaps the most important work at that time was Carl F.H. Henry’s “The Uneasy Conscious of Modern Fundamentalism.”  Evangelicals had become alienated from the social reform movement at the beginning of the 20^th Century, and Henry made the case for them to become engaged in society and promote reforms that make for just society.  Christianity, Henry argued, has a public face and does not live in an isolated corner of the world.  For Henry, Christianity had a message that addressed not just problem of personal sin, but also addressed the social problems of the 20^th century. 

In many respects, the phenomenon of Christian nationalism can be seen as a way of addressing Henry’s concern.  However, Christian nationalism also grows out of a kind of cultural religion that has been with the country since before its founding.  The Pilgrims were intentional about founding a commonwealth built on Christian principles.  Throughout our history, religion and politics have mixed.  I am old enough to remember when there were Public Service Announcements on television encouraging people to “attend the church or synagogue of your choice.”  One of my favorite tellings of this tale is Richard Niebuhr’s “The Kingdom of God in America.”  This cultural American Christianity became, in Niebuhr’s famous conclusion: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgement through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”  This was liberal cultural religion.

Liberal cultural Christianity ended with a whimper in the 1960s as events overwhelmed the “kum-ba-yah” narrative.  Evangelical Christianity, which was on the rise in the last half of the 20^th century, attempted to take up the challenge of social engagement.  Some of the results, such as Prison Fellowship and World Vision, have had a remarkable impact on society.  However, so much of the current cultural engagement has devolved into Christian nationalism.  To attempt to answer how this happened would take much more than can be covered in a blog.  However, in my next blog, I want to suggest some ways out of the swamp of nationalism.

Today, especially in the wake of the events of Jan 6 in our nation’s capital and the aftermath, there have been many thoughtful things written about the dangers of Christian nationalism.  One writer said: “The split we are seeing is not theological or philosophical. It’s a division between those who have become detached from reality and those who, however right wing, are still in the real world.”  I disagree.  I believe that the problem is theological, and the healing can only happen when we deal with the underlying spiritual issues at work here.  Bad theology (another name for heresy) blinds us to the underlying spiritual truths.  

I want to begin with the 18^th century: Specifically the revivals and evangelistic campaigns of Finney and Moody.  The pattern at that time was revival of the church then evangelism of the community.  Revival was not about changing the culture or the community; it was about changing the heart of the church.  The life-transforming work of the Holy Spirit can be stifled by unconfessed sin which hardens the heart.  The challenge of unconfessed sin is that it is often deeply hidden in our hearts – or to use modern language, it rests within our subconscious.  It is something repressed so that we, perhaps, have a vague sense of something wrong, but in our everyday life it cannot be fully grasped or acknowledged.  The revival of the church happens when we individually and corporately search the depth of our souls.  It comes with the deep conviction that we are sinners in need of grace. That humility at the feet of the Cross gives us the power to break through the normal human defenses that hid our own sin from our self.  It is with the spiritual renewal that comes from revival that the church is then empowered to witness the Gospel of Christ to the surrounding community.  The power of the gospel comes out of human brokenness – a brokenness that has experienced the power of grace.  

The theological error of Christian nationalism is that it reverses the process and confuses revival with evangelism.  The narrative of Christian nationalism is that the nation needs a revival and that revival can only happen when more people become Christians.  The sin-focus is not on unconfessed sin within the church, but on the moral failings in the society.  The believer comes not broken but empowered, having the answer to society’s problems and using power to bring about moral reform.  This error is especially dangerous because it blinds us to our own failings.  We never get to the place of soul searching and confession of sin.  It replaces the truth of our own brokenness with the lie that Christians are powerful.  It then closes off the most important truth of the gospel: our own need for grace.  Thus falsely empowered, we use our sin-warped power – in the name of Jesus – in inflict more damage.  In this way, Christian nationalism transforms itself into a political ideology and becomes the enemy of true evangelism.