What Christian Nationalism is ACTUALLY About

Isn’t Christian nationalism just Christians bringing their faith into the public square, or another word for Christians being patriotic? Skye unpacks these common misconceptions and explains what Christian nationalism actually is, and why it conflicts with the gospel’s call to love our neighbors, uphold human dignity, and reject domination. (Full sermon available on Holy Post +)

Skye Jethani: Christian nationalism - what is it?

A couple weeks ago, I was reading an article that was written by a Christian leader, a self-identified Christian nationalist. In his article, he was saying, I don’t really understand why people are so upset about this term, about this movement. And he goes on to say what he defines Christian nationalism to be. This is a quote. He says: "It is simply obedience to Jesus Christ that manifests itself in working for the good of the nation." Obedience to Jesus Christ manifesting itself in working for the good of the nation - if that is Christian nationalism, sign me up.

What he’s describing is not actually Christian nationalism. It’s frankly a whitewashing of the term. What he’s describing is Christian activism. By his definition, anyone who votes motivated by their Christian convictions is a Christian nationalist. Anyone who protests is a Christian nationalist—whether you’re protesting ICE or you’re protesting to be pro-life. Whatever you’re protesting, if you’re motivated by your faith to go out and protest, you are a Christian nationalist.

By his definition, Martin Luther King Jr. was a Christian nationalist, because he was explicit that he was motivated by his faith in Christ to seek the wellbeing of his nation by seeking the end of segregation through the pursuit of civil rights. And yet, I don’t know any Christian nationalist who’s eager to welcome MLK into the fold of their movement.

We must not fall for the error of thinking Christian nationalism is just Christian activism—that anyone motivated by their faith in the public square is therefore a Christian nationalist. That’s not what the phrase means.

Secondly, some people would have you believe that Christian nationalism is just another way of saying Christian patriotism. Patriotism and nationalism are not synonyms. The word patriotism means to love your country. C.S. Lewis talked about patriotism as merely an extension of Christ’s command to love our neighbors. We take that further—we love the full extent of our neighbors in this land. That’s patriotism.

That is not the same as nationalism.

Nationalism, to get to the etymology of it all, comes from the word nation. Nation comes from a Latin word which means birth. It’s the same root where we get words like prenatal, neonatal, postnatal—all the natal words. It means birth. The word nation is used to describe people who share the same birth, the same origin, the same ancestry. This is why we talk about First Nations, right? People who share a common ethnic background.

So what about nationalism? Nationalism is actually a fairly new word in the grand scheme of things. It came about a little over 200 years ago in Europe. And nationalism was a word used to describe an idea.And the idea was that people who share the same ancestry, who share the same culture, who share the same language, they should also share the same country—that they should be organized into a united political identity.

So if patriotism is the idea that you love your country, nationalism is the idea that people of the same ethnic or ancestral background should have the same country. It’s a different idea.

And what ends up happening with this notion during the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe is that it leads to the creation of all the countries in Europe that we think of today. All the different German-speaking regions of Europe got together and said, You know what? We should all have one country. We call it Germany today. All the Italian-speaking regions of Europe got together and said, We should be one country. Hello, Italy.

Same thing with the Spanish-speaking countries and the French-speaking countries. They all came together and became France, and on and on. That’s nationalism. That was the movement that spread throughout Europe over the last 200 years.

By the way, this idea of nationalism has also led to some pretty horrific things.

Nationalism was Hitler’s justification for beginning World War II in 1939 when he invaded Czechoslovakia, because he said, You know, in western Czechoslovakia there’s a whole bunch of German-speaking people. Therefore, they should rightfully be part of Germany. I’m gonna roll my tanks in there and take it over.

And it’s the exact same justification that Vladimir Putin has given for invading Ukraine. There are Russian-speaking people in Ukraine. There are ethnically Russian people in Ukraine. Therefore, that part of Ukraine should actually be part of Russia. Nationalism means we are one people with one nation, one country.

So the word nationalism is not the same as the word patriotism. One is to love your country. The other is to demand you have your own country. So what happens then when you take this word nationalism, with its own meaning and its own history, and you put the adjective Christian in front of it, and then you apply it to a place like the United States?

Christian nationalism is not Christian activism. Christian nationalism is not Christian patriotism. Christian nationalism is the belief that the United States was founded by Christians for Christians, and therefore Christians and their ideas should have preeminence over every part of American society. If patriotism is loving your country, Christian nationalism is dominating your country—but it goes a step further.

When you read the leading Christian nationalists and listen to them in the media, they will often talk about America as a Christian country. But in context, and when you dig beneath the surface, you realize that they have a very particular kind of Christianity in mind. They’re not arguing for America as a broadly Christian country in the sense of the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed or something like that. And they don’t mean Black Christianity. They don’t mean Asian Christianity. They don’t mean Latino Christianity.

Remember, nationalism comes from nation, which comes from people of a shared ancestry. They believe America should be dominated by European Christianity, which is why a lot of scholars argue the proper term ought to be white Christian nationalism.

Okay, so going back to Luke 6 and what Jesus said, and using our discerning judgment, you see a problem. At the heart of Christian nationalism is the belief that certain people should be above others—that those of European and Christian descent have a rightful place dominating the rest of this country because it was made by them and for them, and in so doing, they diminish the value - they dehumanize - their neighbors who don’t share those identities. They justify the mistreatment of ethnic, religious, and racial minorities because the only true Christians and the only true Americans are those of European Christian descent. They are guilty of the very form of judgment and condemnation that Jesus forbids for his followers.

This is the irony: Christian nationalism is profoundly un-Christian because it contradicts the teachings of Jesus and calls that which is good evil and evil good. It mistakes light for dark and darkness for light. And so many of our sisters and brothers have been caught up in this deception, believing it is of God, believing it is of Christ because it claims his name—but it couldn’t be further from his teachings.