Dear Friends in Christ:
In last week’s eblast pastoral message, I wrote about the patriotism reflected in Kathryn Lee Bates’ poem, “O Beautiful for Spacious Skies,” which we sang this past Sunday. This week, I want to write about another kind of patriotism, not beautiful but ugly, a dark and virulent strain of patriotism called Christian Nationalism. It is an idea that has risen at different times in American history and in other countries across the world, and seems to be ascending in one dark corner of the church in America today.
Christian Nationalism goes beyond patriotism by not only cherishing and celebrating a country such as ours, but by proclaiming that the country is especially privileged and chosen by God. As espoused by some writers and pastors, the message is that ethnicities shouldn’t mix and that there really isn’t a place in America for people who aren’t Christian and aren’t white. Christian nationalists often think that what our nation needs to fulfill its God-given purpose is a charismatic Caesar-like leader who will not tolerate dissent.
As noted above, this sadly is not a new idea in America. It rose to the surface in the 1920s for example, when the Ku Klux Klan rose to unprecedented prominence with its anti-immigrant, anti-non-white beliefs, largely taking over state governments in Indiana and Oregon. And it rose in parts of my native South in the 1960s in response to efforts to end segregation. We have seen so-called Christian nationalism at work in other countries such as Hitler’s Germany when he sought to make the church the servant of his autocratic rule. Recently, Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church claimed God’s authority and permission to invade Ukraine.
Christian nationalism is unbiblical – surely, we can all agree that nowhere in the Bible will we find authority for claiming that the United States of American in the 21st century is God’s chosen nation. Nor will we find any endorsement of hatred of others or ethnic purity in Jesus’ teachings. What we will find in the Bible, as our Presbyterian ancestors were quick to proclaim, is that worship of nation and its leaders is a sin. It is condemned at the beginning of the Ten Commandments: the sin of idolatry. The reason that the Presbyterian-trained authors of the Constitution, like James Madison and Pennsylvania’s James Wilson, worked to establish checks and balances in the new United States government is that they understood that “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
As individual Christians we evaluate our political candidates differently; we may have different understandings of the role of government, for example. We may discern different ways to balance the twin goals of “liberty and justice for all.” But whether we are predominantly “red,” “blue,” or some shade of “purple,” may Christians be in full agreement that there is no place in America or in the church for Christian nationalism.
As I pointed out last week, as every picture of our planet from space underscores, our national borders are human constructs, not divine decrees. The God we worship is the God not of one people or one nation, but of all people and all nations. And, the God we worship, as revealed in Jesus Christ, is a God who calls us to love God and to love our neighbor – and Jesus made no exceptions for who they are, what they look like, whom they love, how they got here, or what they believe.
See you Sunday as we once again worship that God,
Carter Lester
Interim Lead Pastor
