If you’re on X, the site formerly known as Twitter—Christian theological X, in particular—you will more than likely be exposed to a certain mode of so-called Christian Nationalism. This mode is of a modern postmillennial variety of the theonomic type. Without getting into the nuts-and-bolds of said framework, it essentially believes that the Great Commission entails the Christianizing of the entire world; in other words, the establishment of a Christendom. Some might look at a post-Constantinian world as what a Christendom involves. So, that is one take on a theological Christian Nationalism, which is seeing some legs under it these days. There is another type that is more philosophically based; maybe of the type that the French revolution was motivated by. A nationalism motivated by the self-determination of the people; we might even think of Libertarians in this way, or even of the Republic we inhabit de jure (in principle) in the United States of America (loosely conceived). It is the latter type the rest of my post will be responding to.
I had a friend pushback on me, on FB, with reference to a short little post I posted earlier today. I wrote: “I understand the impulses for a Christian nationalism, but I am not a proponent. We aren’t actually in Babylon (like Israel), we’re already/not yet in the Kingdom of the risen Christ; emissaries.” The pushback from the friend (and I won’t use his name because I didn’t ask him if I could use his quote here) went like this:
Maybe I don’t see the eschatological tinges to Christian nationalism. It seems more practical, or commonsensical to me. If you’re given the responsibility for, say, passing traffic laws, and setting the budget to expand the existing roadways and water treatment plant, or are faced with formulating some kind of immigration law or setting the penalties for crimes… does it really matter if the kingdom is not yet? Does that have any relevance to the question? Seems like you have to make the best decision that you can whether the kingdom is here or not here. And for the Christian, that will be informed by Christian convictions and not naturalistic or atheistic ones. “Ok, ok, you’re an emissary. I get it. Now, what should we do about the problems caused by these pharmacy-benefit managers? People can’t afford their prescriptions.”
My response was the following (off the top):
I suppose make decisions and support movements that are in line with best bearing witness to the kingdom. The church is not the state, and vice versa; but both are claimed by the domain of the Word, of Christ. The church’s role in the singular kingdom of God, which encompasses ALL of creation, is to bear witness; which often entails resistance etc. I’m unsure though how passing laws etc. constitutes a *Christian Nationalism* per se. That is not what most Christian Nationalist proponents of today (they are en masse on Twitter) are motivated by. It is indeed about spreading a Christendom that will pervade the entire globe; of the type that will usher in the consummate kingdom. I don’t know how to think about this abstractly either. I see some proposing a Christian Nationalism as if some type of sanitized theory of government that remains just as buffered as the secular does from thinking things from a genuinely theological imaginary. Which is ironic, since it is claiming to be “Christian.” I’m unsure what “Christian convictions” are in abstraction from the kingdom, what are those? And if there isn’t a distinction, then in what way would/could you differentiate your view of a Christian Nationalist from the postmil reconstructionists I have in mind? It seems to me that your premise, in regard to Christian convictions (which I believe are real), without some sort of robust qualification, starts functioning, ironically, in the same way that the postmil theory does. In other words, what makes your inchoate theory of a “Christian” nationalism distinct from the theonomists version in function? If we are in the world, but not of it, then how does that bear upon the relationship of nationhood vis a vis ultimate and prior commitments as those are conditioned by being ambassadors of the kingdom? IOW, I don’t see a Christian + Nationalist as a possibility. I see Christians inhabiting nations, indeed, as emissaries from another country. But not one detached from this world, but precisely and concretely for it. But not from an abstract set of conditions in the world, but from the concrete conditions of the primacy of Christ as the telos and eschatos of all creation. I think our primary task as Christians in the now of the kingdom is to bear witness to the not yet; as we all (of creation) are in fact in the kingdom of the risen Christ. So, I see the world, indeed, as the kingdom of Christ, waiting its final victory when Christ will finally place the last enemy, death, under his feet. As Christians in His kingdom, then, we ought to be about bearing prophetic and martyrological witness to the inner ground and reality of all of creation; inclusive of the nations. How this informs the way the Christian operates within the parameters of whatever nation they find themself within, will take shape by asking the questions of what it means to be a *witness* (an ambassador). I don’t see those questions and answers being formed by someone’s status within this or that nation, per se; but by someone who recognizes that they are of the city whose maker is God. This does not evade the question of laws regarding mundanities such as civil law etc., but it frames it within a kingdom rather than an absolutely “nationalistic” frame.
I don’t think it is possible, of course, to have a politick without a theopolitical framework (in that sense the postmils are onto something). So, I reject this idea that there is some pure notion of nationhood that isn’t somehow absolutely entangled with the kingdom of Christ. To think those as if different spheres (Kuyper) make no sense to me. Clearly, I’m functioning from a universalistic logic; but one, again, that is kingdom/Christ conditioned rather than abstractly or untheologically framed. E.g., if you talk to a progressive Christian (typically democratic socialist) they would see pharmacological laws as profoundly grounded in the reality of kerygmatic and thus ecclesial witness bearing activity. Ironically, their respective theopolitical theory has a utopian end to it (really not much different than a theonomic postmil). But I’m somewhere in that mix as well, as far as seeing the theological framing of these matters. I don’t really understand what you mean by “commonsensical” or “practical.”
My responses are very rough draft-like inklings that need to be developed much further. But as far as a conversational response on the way, I think they reflect the heart of the matter for me. I need to finally sit down and write out my own theopolitical theory, in a way that has substantial development and thematic coherence through and through. But the above is what I opine for now, and what floats my boat for the moment. I am seemingly radically Reformed, even when it comes to my theopolitic; with leanings toward a qualified type of Anabaptism.