True Christian Nationalism: Forgoing Nations for the Kingdom of God
Last week I posted about how I believe Christian Nationalists aren’t real Christian and how I believe they are actually only concerned with Americanism and not Christianity. Well, this week I want to kick off with an explanation of how I actually am a Christian Nationalist, but in an entirely different way.
One of the key promises of the Gospel is that the Kingdom of God is near. Jesus tells his followers multiple times that the Kingdom will come like a thief in the night when we least expect it. Jesus tells multiple parables about what the Kingdom of God will be like and what those who follow him can expect. Paul also picks this up in his writings, speaking multiple times of the imminent coming of the Kingdom. Of course, something else that is clear from both Jesus and Peter is the belief that the Kingdom’s arrival was truly immanent. Jesus tells his followers that their generation would not pass away before the coming of the Kingdom (Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30, and Luke 21:32), and Paul speaks of the Kingdom as though its arrival was to be so soon that he, himself, was unlikely to pass before that moment. It’s been 2,000 years since then and, as far as anyone can tell, the mystical Kingdom of God has not arrived upon the Earth. Unless…it has?
Throughout Christian history there have been thinkers who proposed that the Kingdom of God was not to be understood as a future arrival of an Earthly kingdom. In fact, some would argue, that seemed to undermine the whole, radical message of Christ. The Jews had spent generations awaiting their Messiah who would bring the people back to the land of Israel and Judah and establish a permanent kingdom, but Christians believe Jesus was this Messiah, despite his crucifixion and lack of an Earthly kingdom. Naturally, therefore, it seems that the Kingdom of God must be understood in a different way than just an Earthly kingdom. What use would God have for one of those anyway? Worldly power only means anything to us humans, not to He who holds the entire universe in His hands.
This desire for new understanding eventually led some to the belief that the Kingdom of God had been realized, or at least was already partially realized. In other words, we are currently living in that kingdom. This reading of course requires a more mystical touch, but that’s what we specialize in here at Bottoms Up Theology. If we are to understand that the Kingdom of God is already amongst us (Luke 17:21), then we should be living already as though the divisions of the past are behind us. Let there no longer be male nor female, Jew nor gentile, slave nor free, for we are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28). But, what this also means is that our true allegiance should be to that heavenly kingdom which already exists within our midst.
Something you will often see in Christian Nationalist circles is the belief that the United States (or whatever other country they support) was founded by, is blessed by, or is otherwise favored by God. This is an anti-Biblical belief. If we are to take Christ and the Bible at their word, then we need to understand that there is only one nation founded by, blessed by, and favored by God - His very own kingdom. As Christians, we have been baptized into the citizenship of this nation. No longer are our main allegiances to our earthly nations or ethnicities. Now, we are called to something above and beyond those. No longer are we meant to bow down to Earthly kings, presidents, prime ministers, or dictators, for we already have our king - Jesus.
What I’m getting at is this: I’m a Christian Nationalist for the actual Christian nation - the Kingdom of God. I’m a supporter and a citizen of that nation which supersedes borders and laws, which contains every race and ethnicity, where every language is spoken and celebrated, where there are no outsiders, and where we all long to share our bread and our cloaks with one another. The United States - like every other nation on Earth - will one day crumble into ash and the memory of it will be found only in fragments in the records of the future. There will come a time when being American means no more than being Babylonian or Mesopotamian - if such things are even remembered. But there is one nation that will never crumble to dust, one nation which will live on even if it’s name is no longer remembered or it is called by another.
Our God is infinite, and so, too, is his kingdom. Let us remember where our allegiance lies.
