No one, I suspect, would argue that the United States is perfect, nor ever has been. There have always been and always will be plenty of national failures to repent over. No one, however, would either take the position that the United States is the most evil nation the world has ever known. Almost every Christian in the country can agree that while we are citizens of the kingdom of Christ, the country He has placed us in is blessed but flawed.
Which is why it seems rather strange to me that one of the things Christians have been fighting over of late is “Christian nationalism.” All of us are on the same spectrum. None of us are on either extreme edge. Shouldn’t we be able to get along better? I have something of a heavy foot. Anyone who has ever taken a ride with me will quickly confirm that truth. I have, however, plenty of times, had cars go screaming past me. I have had pokey drives hold me up, often even in the left lane. I see myself as smack dab in the middle, not of a lane, but the spectrum of drivers. Those whizzing past me are crazy people. Those holding me up drive people crazy.
So it is with patriotism. I get annoyed when Christians wrap the gospel up in the American flag. I cringe when local churches ask the congregation to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I’m frustrated that so many of those who love and rejoice over our founding principles seem to have no clue that those principles have long since been trampled underfoot of Leviathan. But because those principles continue to be trampled underfoot even in our churches (or perhaps I should say outside our churches since we seem to have to wait for Caesar to give us permission to go inside), because I have deep and profound distrust of the party of death, its president, its various governors and its Chief Priest, the witchdoctor Jabjab, this makes me in the eyes of some guilty of Christian nationalism.
“Christian nationalism” is either the fever dream of those caught in the throes of Trump Derangement Syndrome or as rare as polio. Those screeching about it as some grave danger are the same ones who told us we’d all die if we left our homes, if we travelled abroad, if we didn’t get jabbed, if we didn’t wear masks. It is front and center of the strategy of the left to quell the principled right. It is Big Eva wearing the letterman’s jacket of that big man on campus, the quarterback of the Social Respectability team.
Do not miss the irony. One earns the epithet “Christian nationalist” simply by not embracing the ideology of the reigning power of our nation. One will be cast out of polite society for not toeing the party line. It’s the Christian version of Antifa, attacking lovers of liberty by fascistically denouncing and de-platforming them as fascists. The solution is not to wave the flag harder, but to trust the true King more fully. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given unto Him. Let us be of good cheer, for He has already overcome the world.
