How Should Pastors Help their Congregations Respond to Christian Nationalism?
Selected Excerpts from the December 16, 2024 Theologically Speaking Podcast
The companion insight piece to the December 16, 2024 episode of the Theologically Speaking podcast (link) featuring Dr. Greg Stiekes is his Theology in 3D blog on Christian Nationalism and the political process, entitled “The Ideology of Christian Nationalism and the Theology of the New Testament.”
This week’s Viewpoint, in turn, consists of key excerpts from the podcast provided as a further resource to pastors.
Dr. Greg Stiekes (GS): …. (N)ationalism means that we love our country, and we want to see our country flourish…. But Christian nationalism really means making Christianity the religion of your country. It’s winning a majority of people who are believers, enough of them to elect people into government offices, who will write the laws that would make Christians comfortable. How are we going to bring in a culture that would match what the New Testament says we ought to be doing in the Church?
SH: One of the arguments is that there are countries that reflect the religious environment of whatever God they serve like. For example, you go to Muslim cultures right and for right or wrong … they have a certain belief system that’s reflected in the Quran….They make laws to govern the country and to create the culture in that country around that context.
GS: (Proponents of Christian nationalism) would say that America has been from its inception a country that is supposed to be under God…. There is certainly some ground for understanding how these men might be approaching this….
The question, though, is, if we don’t have a Christian country right now, do we bring that back in through political means? Do we go after the government and make the change that way? Or do we follow what the New Testament seems to emphasize very strongly, and that is the pure and passionate proclamation of the word to change hearts and lives? No passage in Scripture can be construed, I don’t believe, to say that our salvation is going to come through the government.
SH: So let’s bring this real practical… down to where we live as pastors… What do we tell … people who read Doug Wilson or Stephen Wolf, and it resonates with them?
SS: We dare not get distracted from that sincere and pure devotion to Christ…. We don’t neglect the government, but we keep it in its proper focus.
GS: We’re told every day, by the Lord Himself to pray, God I want your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven…. That’s why we vote the way we do. We want to see, even if we vote strategically … we don’t like either candidate, but one of them, we think, is going to bring in the kind of things that we would like to see flourish in the world as believers.
In the article I wrote on this for Theology in 3D, I just went through the Gospels, Acts, the Epistles and Revelation very briefly, and said, “How are these different genres of literature in the New Testament messaging this idea?”
You’ve got Jesus, who is not an insurrectionist. And, in fact, he escapes their hands when they try to force him to be king, and he is distancing himself all the time from having a direct implication in into Caesar’s government…. In the Epistles, (Paul’s) of course talking about how we should respect the government. ….(Y)ou don’t see the kind of messaging that you would want to see if the New Testament were trying to push us toward using the Government as our vehicle to spread the Gospel.
It would be a great blessing if a government came in, and there are enough people who said, You know what? Let’s make the rules this way, and let’s be mindful that we have people here who aren’t believers. But let’s make it so that abortion is not a thing that’s legal…. What a blessing! I’m not against that at all. If that happens, then then that’s fine, but I feel like there’s this push toward using the government as that vehicle, and while it might make logical sense, and it might get us some things that we want right away, are we, in a sense, maybe undermining the force of the New Testament, and how it helps us to spread the gospel in any government.
…. It’s very difficult to be a believer in Yemen, or Iraq, or Iran, or North Korea. I mean, you’re risking your life to open your mouth about the gospel. And yet the gospel is still saving souls in in those environments.
SH: Why do you think, Stuart, we confuse country with kingdom, with God’s kingdom or church?
SS: I really do think it’s how you read the Scriptures…. there will be a physical reign, the millennium, when Christ rules. Some are, I think, seeing we’re going to make the millennium now, and Christ isn’t ruling at least physically.
SH: Because of these things lining up historically, people coming to this new world for religious freedom, America being birthed by people who knew a lot about the Scripture, it is in the DNA of America to feel like our nation and God’s kingdom is the same.
But you go back to that classic passage that we read at Christmastime, Isaiah 9: “Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders, and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end….”
And then there’s this little interesting line at the end of that verse: “The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.” We skip over that line, but that tells us how this kingdom is going to be established. The word “zeal” is a word for “wrath. It’s the stirring up of God’s anger and jealousy.
This is God coming to judge, and that’s exactly what you see in the Book of Revelation. You see the God of armies bringing judgment upon the earth, and that judgment culminates with the arrival of the King Messiah to establish the kingdom we’re talking about.
GS: He just has to decide whether to come to Jerusalem or Moscow. Idaho, now.
SH: Oh, man, I’m not touching that. That’s a good closeout here.
Additional Resources:
- Doug Wilson, Mere Christendom: The Case for Bringing Christianity Back into Modern Culture
- Religion News Service, “The second coming of Doug Wilson”
- Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism