Christian Nationalism

December 15th 2024

Romans 13:1-7

After this Morning’s Sermon, we only have two more Sundays in our Three Month long Sermon on Eschatology. I pray it has been a blessing to you.

Beginning in this Month, December, we started to move away, for the most part, from the particulars of the end of the World, and have started to talk about what it looks like to live in accordance with your Eschatology. And as I stated before, and will continue to repeat throughout the next 2 Sermons, how you understand the end of the World is nothing less than how you understand God. The character and nature of God is not going to change when He begins to wrap things up down here. We also talked about how there are no “eschatology specific” instructions. Instead, we are to simply live like Christians should be living, all the time, in everything we do.

Last week we looked at the ramifications that God never abandons His people. Never. Which brought us to talk about what role, if any, Israel may play in the end of the World. However, instead of trying to force you into what I personally believe, I gave you the differing understandings, and then set up two “guard rails” to help us stay on the narrow road of Christianity. Those two guard rails are: #1) Someone’s ethnicity plays no part in their salvation, neither confirming or denying it. And #2) The Church is the true Israel of God. We concluded by saying that how you understand Israel’s future, is dependent on how you understand The Millennium.

Now moving forward, we're going to look at the ramifications of the Biblical truth that, here and now, Jesus Christ is ruling the World. When He said in John 12:31, that the ruler of this World was cast out…He really meant it. Satan is not in charge, Jesus is. Which brings us to today’s message: “A Sermon on Christian Nationalism.” Before we get any further, however, I would like to invite you to stand and read the Word of the Lord with me. 

Before we get too far, there is something right up front that needs to be discussed. In the providence of God, the phrase “Christian Nationalism” has once again entered our cultural mindset. A lot of people are talking about it. Mostly, it has been used derogatorily against Christians, most of whom, I am thinking, don’t really have a solid definition about what “Christian Nationalism” even is. Unbelievers simply vomit this phrase out, and think they have somehow said something of value. “You're one of those Christian Nationalists, aren't you?” If someone says this to you, my recommendation would be to ask them to define the term. Chances are…they can’t. 

To help us define the term, I’d like to ask a question. This question, I believe, will reveal that every single Christian is a Christian Nationalist. Regardless of what they believe about the End-Times, regardless of their soteriology (how some is “Saved”), and even regardless of their Denomination… how you answer this question will help you understand that everyone within whom the Holy Spirit lives, is a Christian Nationalist. It wont give us a definition, but by the time we leave today, we will have one. The question is this:

Can human societies govern themselves

without reference to God?

This is our Thesis Statement this morning. A thesis question, if you will.

What is the underlying framework of a Nation, and where does it come from? How are Nations formed, and once they are formed, how do they create and enforce their laws? What is our American presupposition? (Remember, a presupposition is a belief that is “running in the background” of your mind, that forms your thoughts and beliefs.) What is a Nation’s, any Nation’s presupposition when it comes to how they're governed, and how they're laws are made?

Now, because we are wrapping up a Series on Eschatology, as I said a few Sundays ago, when you talk about the end of the World, you will always end up talking about Nations. About Governments. About politics. In fact, whenever you talk about religion at all…you will end up talking about politics. It is unavoidable. It's like this because God talks about Nations, Governments, and Politics…throughout the entire Bible. And remember, when something shows up throughout all of Scripture, it needs to show up in our Eschatology. Our understanding of the end of the World. When God talks about the end of the World, He spends time talking about Governments, Rulers, Nations, and Authorities.

When He inspired the Apostle John to write the Book of Revelation, He instructed him to talk about a governmental entity in Revelation 13. All of the Schools of eschatological thought agree with this, be they Premill, Amill, or Postmill. All of them will say that the Beast of Revelation is a Government.

When God talks about something,

we have an obligation to talk about it as well.

We can’t section off “sticky subjects” in Scripture, because our culture leans away from them. And the tendency in America, at least in the current culture, is to lean away from talking about Governments and Nations, how they form and function, and how they should form and function. For the Christian living in America here and now, you better not talk about Politics and Religion, especially at the same time. It has become taboo to mention politics in the same breath with your faith, and we’ll talk about how that came to be in a little bit here…but before we get there, we can see this truth, that it is taboo to bring your faith into the political, runs so deep, that there is actually a law that prohibits Tax-Exempt Organizations…such as Churches, from engaging in Political Campaign activities. The Johnson Amendment, which was introduced by then Senator Lyndon B. Johnson in 1954, and was codified that same year with the passage of the Tax Reform Law. This law states that Tax Exempt entities cannot endorse or oppose any specific candidate; they can't make financial contributions or expenditures that will influence an election; and it prohibits those entities from publicly promoting or endorsing candidates during an election cycle. Whether that Law is Biblical or not, whether that Law should be followed by Christians, will be discussed as we move forward. 

America has as a law, that a Church can not endorse, promote, donate to, or criticize our politicians. And we wonder why we have sodomy flags hanging from the White House. Is it any surprise that a Nation with the mentality that faith should be left out of politics, has children and adults irreversibly mutilating their reproductive organs? Why do we have any Abortion Clinics? Why have we killed millions of non-combatant civilians in our numerous wars? Why do we have Drag Queen story hours? Why are we engaged in forever wars? Why are we importing pet-eating, demon worshipping immigrants into our Country? Why does Lady Liberty have the blood of 63 million children staining her hands? Why is our Nation doing these things? It’s not because of the Johnson Amendment…it’s because when the culture told Christians to keep their faith out of Politics…we listened to them.

Now, that for sure has a negative connotation. Even the tone of my voice, I hope, conveyed it. We the Church are supposed to be the salt and the light of this World (Mt. 5:13-16), but if the salt loses its flavor…or the light is hidden…then we are the ones to blame. This principle is can be seen in the Old Testament, in Ezekiel 33:1-6, when it says this: “Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, [2] “Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from their territory and make him their watchman, [3] when he sees the sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, [4] then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head. [5] He heard the sound of the trumpet, but did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But he who takes warning will save his life. [6] But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.’ ”

We have a divine obligation as the Israel of God,

to warn our Nation of the wages of their sin.

Both temporal (here inside of time) and eternal.

Now, there is a ‘benefit of the doubt’ that we need to extend to our brothers and sisters in the Faith, we need to be gracious, but before we get there, I’d like to repeat some questions I have asked from this very Pulpit, in this series on Eschatology. If your understanding of the end of the World is that everything is going to get worse and worse…what are you going to do about it? Watch it all burn? And conversely, if your understanding is that everything on Earth is going to get better and better, I have the exact same question…what are you going to do about it? Sit back and expect it to happen magically?

We're still going to get to this ‘benefit of the doubt’; hold it in your hand, and remember that we're going to come back to it; about why Christians have surrendered their voice in the political realm, but first, I want to briefly discuss a few objections of Christian Nationalism. The first one will be easy to disprove.

Objections to Christian Nationalism:

#1) 

With the first objection, people will say that “Nations” can’t be Christian, only people can be Christians. While I agree with that on the surface, yes, only people can be indwelt by The Holy Spirit and are thus “Christians”. But if we broaden the definition, just a little bit, we can all agree that Businesses can be Christian. Books can be Christian, Movies, Families, and Churches, are all considered Christian if they meet certain criteria. And that right there will help us along in trying to define “Christian Nationalism”. If a business can be Christian, if a School can be Christian…then why can’t a Nation?

#2)

“Well then, Pastor,” you may be saying, “I can see where you're going, but America has the Freedom of Religion, therefore we can’t be a Christian Nation.”

My first critique of this, while it may sound comical, is real. If we are going to, no restrictions whatsoever, have freedom of religion…then we can’t say anything to the people who sacrifice virgins to the Sun, to help their Corn grow better. No one wants that. But, to entertain the idea past that, if its needed, we need to look at History. 

The First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." However, the people in our Nation who hate God, have taken this and run far away from what the text actually says. I'm going to repeat the first line, it says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” What that means, is that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. It’s not complicated. There can not be, here in America, and I agree with it, any “Federally controlled Religion.” In other words, there can not be an official “Church of the United States.” This is a good thing, brothers and sisters. It is good that the Federal Government does not have the power to say “This religion, this Church, is the official one of this Nation.” No Government of men should have that authority. That is how you end up with China, with North Korea, with Saudi Arabia. If we look at Scripture, from the very beginning, from the Garden, the sinful bend of our Human desire is to be like God. To be the ultimate authority of everything. Of marriage, of economics, of gender, of love, of good and evil. We want to, because of our fallen sinful nature, be the end-all-be-all of everything. We want to be the ones who decide if a housing development is good or bad, if and how immigration is good or bad. If a Strip Club can be in so many feet of an Elementary School or if this chemical or that one can go in our food. And once that authority is given to a Government composed of fallen creatures (humans)…it won't be long until they turn that power against the one true God. It is a good and Biblical thing, that America decided to not give that power to our Federal Government.

#3)

Let's remember where we are; the first objection to “Christian Nationalism” is that Nations can’t be Christian. Which we disproved by saying that numerous entities are already labeled as “Christian.” The second objection is that we have the freedom of religion in America. Which we disproved by saying that the freedom of religion only prohibits a federal Government from declaring an official religion. This one might be a good objection, but before we have an actual definition of “Christian Nationalism”, don't get your hopes up. Now the third objection, the separation of Church and State.

This is something that every Christian has heard, from believers and nonbelievers alike, when they start to talk about Christianity and Politics. I've heard it from non-Christians while out street preaching, and I heard it from Christians during COVID, as their reason to not go to Church. However, just like with the First Amendment, it has gone far beyond its origin. You see, the phrase: “A Wall of separation between Church and State” isn't a Law. It’s not an amendment, it's not in the Bill of Rights, it's not in the Constitution, and it is obviously absent from the Declaration of Independence. This phrase, “A wall of separation between Church and State”, first appeared in a letter from Thomas Jefferson, on January 1st 1802, in a letter that he wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association, in Danbury Connecticut. He said this: “I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.” He said this to ensure them that the Federal Government was not going to interfere with their religious practices. He said this to protect Churches from their Government…not the other way around.

He was upholding the First Amendment, which as we just discussed, is a good thing.

There are other objections to Christian Nationalism, but those three are the big ones, especially here in America. But now, let's get back to the benefit of doubt. When adding grace to our train of thoughts, why have Christian’s surrendered their voice in the political world?

The benefit of the doubt:

Part of the reason this happened, there's actually a lot of them, but the biggest one in my opinion, is that we here in 2024, are living amongst the ruins of Christendom.

Our Country was started by people who acknowledged the absolute and complete sovereignty of God over every aspect of our life, and the remains of that thinking are still here with us. In fact, those who started our Nation believed that God was sovereign over everything, including our Salvation. Yes, America was started by Calvinists. In fact, it was so apparent that Calvinists were the ones “leading the charge”, of the American Revolution, that a member of the British Parliament, Horace Walpole, said this in 1776: “Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson.” Even the phrase: “Give ‘em what for” started during the War for Independence by the pastor of a Local Presbyterian Church, Rev. James Caldwell. He wore his military uniform beneath his black preaching robe and leaned his firearm against the Pulpit he preached from, every Sunday. During one battle against the British, when his troops were running low on the wadding needed to fire their guns, he told his men to tear out the pages of their Hymnals, Hymns written by Isaac Watts, and use them instead. He cried out between rounds from his rifle: “Give ‘em Watts boys! Give ‘em Watts!” Even the tyrant King George himself referred to the American Revolution as the “Presbyterian Revolt.” If that isn't enough, one of the war cry’s of the American Revolution, shouted from behind embankments, in between blasts from their muskets and over the sound of cannon-fire, was: “No King but Christ.”

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…” The founders of our Nation declared to the biggest Empire on the planet, that human rights come from God, not from any man or any piece of paper. 

America was founded as a Christian Nation,

and the scent of their holy zeal still lingers to this day.

We are reaping the rewards of Christians who went before us into eternity. Those Christians who stood their ground against the Roman lions of antiquity, planted seeds that bore fruit in the lives of the Christians who stood their ground against the tyranny of Great Britain. And when they died, the seeds of the tree of liberty were planted in the soil we all still walk on. We are like Lucy in the Chronicles of Narnia book ‘Prince Caspian’, walking amongst the ruins of Cair Paravel, wondering what happened. 

What happened is that Christians have been brow beaten and bullied into silence in the realm of Politics. How bad will it have to get, brothers and sisters, before we again take our stand against the wave of wickedness we see around us. I pray that Thomas Jefferson's words never come to fruition, when he said: “The Tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Back to ‘the benefit of the doubt’. 

All of us here this morning, have lived our entire life in a Nation founded by Christians, and that effect is still here. We are swimming in Christian waters. We think that everything is going to be ok because we can still go to Church every Sunday. We still see Crosses everywhere we go. Even non-Christians will adorn themselves with the tool that killed our Savior. The ruins of Christendom are everywhere, to the extent that even the Gravel Pit outside of town here in Clyde, has a giant metal Cross on the Hill.

The water we are swimming in,

though it has been stained by secularism,

still has ripples of Christendom in its waves.

This truth is seen everywhere, not simply in our clothing choices and the statues we build, but it is why the phrase: “Who is man that you are mindful of him?” a section of Psalm 8, is chiseled into the stone of the Harvard Philosophy building; and why the words: “Not under man, but under God and law” is inscribed on the World’s largest law library (also at Harvard). America being founded as a Christian Nation is why, in the Supreme Court Case of Holy Trinity Church VS the United States, in 1892, Supreme Court Justice David Brewer said: “This is a Christian Nation.” America having been founded by Christians as a Christian Nation, is why we still see the 10 Commandments hanging in Court Houses all over the Country. 

But, I fear that it has lulled us into a false sense of security. That we have been rocked to sleep. And the benefit of the doubt comes in when an honest, God fearing Christian thinks something like this: “There is no need to raise our voices in the Political Realm, because I see the glimmer of Christianity everywhere I go.” If anything good has come out of the chaos of the past few years, it's that it has made the need for Christians to exert their faith into politics, even more obvious.

So what are we going to do about it…right? Regardless of if you think the Beast of Revelation is an end-of-history one world Government, an analogy of any Government that is opposed to God, or if it was Rome in 70ad…no Christian can sit idly by. America needs Christian Nationalism. We don't need anything new, we need something old. We need to go back to our roots, back to the understanding that built this Nation, no matter the cost, be it the blood of Patriots or the blood of Tyrants.

We need to do so because of the verses I read in Ezekiel earlier, but also because of what God says in Leviticus 18:24-28, just after giving them the laws of sexual morality. He says this: “ ‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. [25] For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants. [26] You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of your own nation or any stranger who dwells among you [27] (for all these abominations the men of the land have done, who were before you, and thus the land is defiled), [28] lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you.”

God kicked people out of their Nation because they refused to follow his laws. And that gets at the heart of today’s message. God destroys Nations for the sin of their people. And if there is any Nation thirsty for the wrath of God, it is one as wicked as America.

This is where we can almost get a definition of “Christian Nationalism”. It's a little vague, a little cloudy, but we're getting closer.

“Christianity” can be seen everywhere, and to such a depth, that even the non-Christians in this Nation act in uniquely Christian ways. Stay with me here. The blue haired homosexuals, lobbying for the right to groom children and the Serial Killers for hire at the Abortion Clinics, though they are committing evil, are still under the influence of Christianity, and they hate it. Which is why they react with anger when you point out to them that they are stealing from our Worldview.

They say they are offering health care to a woman who is paying them to kill her child, under the pretense that “Health Care” is a good thing. They are wrong in saying that abortion is Health Care, but they are right when saying that “Health Care” is a good thing…and it is Christianity that makes Health Care a good thing. The sexual deviant who wants no limits on who they can sleep with will say: “Just let people love each other” without a reason why “Love” is a good thing to begin with. They will say that we need to respect people’s pronouns, with no reason why “respect” is a good thing. The Christian worldview is baked into our culture to such a depth, that even those who hate God are operating under His Word without even realizing it. And it goes far beyond people’s individual sins, to the point that even our laws, though they are changing, are influenced by Christianity…which helps bring our definition into sharper focus.

What we need to understand is that every single law is an attempt to legislate morality, to legislate ethics. All of them. Whoever writes the law, does so because they think that it is a good thing. Whoever votes for a law, does so because they think it is good. They believe the Nation as a whole will be better off, safer, happier, more productive, healthier, whatever the case may be…if the law they are proposing is enacted. “It's not a good thing to murder someone, so let's make murder illegal.”  “It's not a good thing for children to drink alcohol, so let's set a drinking age.” “It's not a good thing to speed, to steal, to burn down your house and collect the insurance money, etc etc etc. so lets make laws about it.” 

Every single law is an attempt

to legislate morality.

I hope you caught something in my words just now. Something that gave you a pause. If someone says to you: “This law is good.” Your response should be…what? → “What is your standard of good?” What makes something good and what makes something bad? I agree that murder should be illegal, and I can tell you why it is bad, even if the individual committing it really really wants to do so, and has had that desire their entire life.

What makes something good or bad, be it a thought, an action, a Law, or the process by which laws are made, is not decided upon by us. If the murder of people outside of the womb all of a sudden became legal…that wouldn't change if it was moral or immoral. It would only change the fabric of that society. The only change that happened when Homosexual Mirage was legalized, wasn't in the nature of it being moral or not, it only increased the velocity of the vomit that our land will spew us out with. 

Plainly speaking,

we need laws that God loves,

not laws that God hates.

There is a myth in America that the political sphere is neutral, that those who make our laws aren't going to put any favor on this belief or that belief, on this faith or that faith, and without compromising the First Amendment, there is a touch of truth in this. Just a touch. Stay with me here. 

From the founding of our Nation, our lawmakers and our leaders were operating under the understanding that good and evil are defined by God, and they made their laws to reflect that. In fact, even the Freedom of Religion, the truth that belief cannot and should not be coerced by a Government,  is a Christian ideal. They passed laws that honored the Biblical truth of the freedom of individuals, and gave them the means to live an orderly life…regardless of if they believed in God or not. Americans can live a quiet and peaceful life, which comes to us from 1st Timothy 2, even if they aren't a Christian. Americans are free to love their neighbor and love God, which Jesus says in Matthew 22 are the two greatest commandments, and if they don't love God or neighbor…that's between them and God, and no Government can force it to happen.

The touch, the sprinkle of neutrality that exists in the political sphere, is only there because America was founded as a Christian Nation, and because neutrality in the political sphere can only happen when someone’s heart has been purged of its love for sin. Only Christian lawmakers, only Christian rulers, only Christian leaders, Senators, Congressmen, and Presidents…only the children of God can make a society where the people who live within it are truly free, because freedom only comes to us once our sin loving hearts have been replaced.

Because only those who have repented of their sin and believed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ are truly free. Before God saved us, we were enslaved to a far greater enemy than any tyrant who has ever lived. We were enslaved to our sin, John 8:34 teaches, and had no hope, no peace, no freedom, and lived like the slaves that we were. We had no choice but to sin, and the sins that we willingly committed earned us death. Death in the physical, and death in the eternal. However, because He is gracious and loving, God sent His Son to die in our place while we were still sinners, and “who the Son sets free, is free indeed.”(Jn. 8:36)

If our leaders, our politicians, if the people of whom the Government of America is composed of, are not Christians…then they are slaves to their sin and will pass laws and regulations in direct relation to the sin that they love.

And that brings us even closer to a definition of Christian Nationalism. We're almost there, I promise.

__

You see brothers and sisters, the role of a Government is not to enforce a specific belief, yes, but it is to protect the good, and punish the bad. That is the Government’s job, and nothing else. This is what our Verses this morning in Romans 13 are talking about, when it says in verse 4 and verse 6 that the Governmental rulers of a Nation are God’s ministers. It means they have a divine obligation to see what He loves promoted, and what He hates prevented. That is their duty, they are Ministers, tasked by Heaven with Ministering to us. They were not given their role by the people. Not by the wealthy or the smart or the influential. No. They were given their role as our Leaders…by God. They are His Ministers, and have the divine obligation of promoting the moral, and preventing the immoral.

The Government’s job is to create and maintain a society

where “what God says is good” is free to grow,

and “what God says is evil” is kept away from the innocent and the weak.

That could be a good definition of Christian Nationalism, a “working definition” if you will, but I'm still not happy with it. It’s a little clunky, a little wordy. Let's keep going. We're almost there.

One thing we need to understand before we go home this morning, is that this kind of change is not going to happen, under human effort, in our lifetime. “Unless the Lord builds the house,” Psalm 127:1 teaches, “those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over a city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit, moving and working, and sanctifying the believers in a Nation, that the Nation could ever become Christian. And as Isaiah 55:11 teaches us, the Word of the Lord will never return void. How do we Christianize America? By speaking to everyone within it, the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the repentance of sins.

If we are trying to force a top-down

Christianity in our Nation, it will fail.

It must be from the bottom up.

It must be each and every single Christian, speaking about who God is, what He has done in their life and in the World, to everyone in their life. We must be like John the Baptist in Matthew 14:4, and hold our Political Leaders accountable to the Law of God, and no other. They must, as Psalm 2:14 says: “Kiss the Son, lest they perish in the way.” It is our Christian obligation to hold the political leaders of America accountable to the law of God. It has to start with us. We are to be the leaven in the loaf. The seed in the garden. It has to start with us. 

We need to be encouraging the Christian whose job is to pick up our garbage every week, to live like a Christian at their work. We need to tell the Christian Baker to operate their business like a Christian. We need to tell the Christian bicycle repairmen, the Christian musician, the Christian app-developer, the Christian stay at home mom, and the Christian truck driver to live their faith through the actions that they take while they are at their job. And the same thing can be said to the Christian Lawmaker. When a Bill comes across the desk of a Christian Congressman or a Christian Senator, they need to act like Christians.

A definition of Christian Nationalism: 

The way we can make America a Christian Nation, one whose Laws and the processes by which those Laws are codified are loved and approved of by God, is to remind every single Christian within her streets that their obligation to God outweighs every other. And because His Word never returns void, it will accomplish everything that He is intending it to do. Either the land vomiting us out, or national repentance.

Either way, Lord, not our will, but yours be done.