The Gospel > Earthly Idols

I have heard from a few people who have asked why I don’t talk about the sin that is ruining our families, our churches, or our nation. So, I decided I will go ahead and address that sin directly in this post. The sin of course is the sin that is known as Christian nationalism. Oh sorry, did you think I was referring to a different one?

A core foundational belief of Christian nationalism is that allegiance to one’s nation, or more specifically the leader of that nation, is somehow a barometer to gauge your allegiance to Jesus. At its core it clearly violates the first of the 10 commandments which so clearly states: “I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before me”. Christian nationalism distorts the beauty and intent of the Gospel by replacing it with an additional required blind allegiance to human governance.

We are told in the biblical writings that those in Christ are not citizens of this earth but rather are ambassadors of peace who represent our true leader who is the triune God (non-Christians bear with me as I wade into this Christian language for the benefit of my fellow Christians), and yet many of us practice a faith that elevates the leaders of our nation to deity status while evoking Bible verses to seemingly justify our exclusion of “the others”. Christian nationalism will make laws regarding the posting of the Ten Commandments while ignoring the calls of the Beatitudes. 

Christian nationalism call people to bow their knee to the golden images of our day as if the God they claim to be defending is pleased with an empty theology of power acquisition. This distorts the Gospel into something foreign to the biblical text, early church fathers and mothers, and dare I say Jesus Himself.

Jesus made clear that the Gospel message was one of hope for the outcast, redemption for the forgotten, and love for the sinner. In his declaration known as the Greatest commandment found in His answer to the Nationalistic Jewish leaders of His day, we clearly see that our love for God MUST lead us not to love of nation above love of “the other”.  

Don’t believe me? Then I invite you to ponder these words found in Matthew 22:37-40: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” In this interaction, Jesus stands the rationale of the Old Covenant on its head, he doesn’t abolish it but rather redirects hearts back to its original intent. The intent we see declared to Abraham who was promised that his offspring would become a blessing to ALL nations.

The Gospel that was ushered into existence by the descendant of Abraham we know as Jesus of Nazareth who was, I believe, fully God and yet at the same time fully man was not one of power but one of grace where power is laid aside for the benefit of others. Christ died for us while we were still a sinner, but Christian nationalism subverts this and adds works or litmus tests to the equation. People are shamed into compliance with a code of morality that has at its center a theocratic system never intended to be part of the Gospel of Grace or the Kingdom of God. Sin is categorized by degree of acceptability by those in power to wield some “holy hammer” over the heads of those who embrace anything seen as “other than perfect nationally accepted moral allegiance”.

I challenge us all to embrace the Gospel found in the life and example of Jesus not the one centered on the idolatry of America first because that is not a gospel that brings life. I am personally proudly patriotic, but I refuse to betray the Kingdom of God by confusing the power of nationalism with the love, grace, and truth of the holistic Gospel of Jesus.