Are Bible Believing Christians White Nationalists?

There is an effort afoot these days by certain people to marginalize Christians in society. These are people who have no use for Christians and Christianity, and there are numerous ways they are attempting to achieve their goal.

One method is to disparage Christian values by asserting that Christian beliefs are immoral. We see this as the news media and many politicians and entertainers attempt to portray Christians who don’t believe in abortion, homosexual marriage, support for transgenderism, racial equity, and certain other “liberal” political and social policies, as anti-woman, homophobic, racist, and just plain immoral. This approach is basically just name calling in the hope they will be able to marginalize (or in today’s lingo, cancel) Christians and Christian values.

But there is now another method that is being rolled out. This one is to tar and feather Christians with the term Christian Nationalist. As with many attempts to disparage Christians, this term has been manipulated to muddle people’s understanding of the very concept of Christianity – not to mention the concepts of patriotism and nationalism. The name-calling approach above is an attempt to turn Christianity into a social services ideology, and paint Christianity as something it isn’t using social justice vocabulary. The Christian Nationalist approach, on the other hand, attempts to paint the Christian faith as a political movement.

Neither of these things is true, of course. The essence of the Christian faith revolves around an individual’s personal relationship with God – nothing more. There certainly are personal and societal implications to a genuine understanding of Christian beliefs and values, but those implications are not the essence of the faith. And unless that distinction is understood, it is quite easy to create confusion about this topic. To sort it out, we need to understand a few terms.

Patriotism
Simply put, patriotism is the love of country. This is not an ideology, but simply a sentiment. Having a love and appreciation of one’s country is typically not at all controversial. It is quite a natural condition for most people in most countries.

Nationalism
Nationalism moves one step beyond simple patriotism. It not only includes a sense of love of country, but adds a political dimension that incorporates identification with and support for the interests of one’s country. This can possibly, though not necessarily, involve exalting one’s nation above all others by placing primary emphasis on the promotion of its culture and interests – sometimes even to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.

Christian Nationalism
So this brings us to Christian Nationalism. Christian Nationalism is the belief that the American nation is defined by Christianity, and that the government should be mobilized in a way that promotes that notion. More specifically, Christian Nationalists believe that America is a “Christian nation” in the sense that Christianity, as a religious faith, should enjoy a privileged position in the public square.

Patriotic Biblical Christianity
While there are people who are legitimately Christian nationalists, that does not define the core essence of Christianity. Nor does it define the position of most Christians. Most people who are truly committed Christians, and who also love their country, can more reasonably be called Patriotic Biblical Christians. These people specifically cannot be characterized as Christian Nationalists.

That said, since detractors don’t tend to be able to make the distinction between genuine Christian Nationalists and Patriotic Biblical Christians, they often, out of ignorance, lump them all together and deem every Christian who is patriotic to be a Christian Nationalist. That is false on its face. It is absolutely possible to be a biblical Christian whose worldview beliefs correspond to biblical Christianity, and to be patriotic, without being a Christian Nationalist.

What is too often left out of the conversation is the fact that it is impossible to have a society that has no underlying set of values or system for ordering society. EVERY society in existence has some set of underlying values, along with a philosophical underpinning for the way it is structured.

It is beyond doubt that the values that American society was founded upon were Christian values. Beyond that, the organizing principles underpinning the legal system, economic system, and the very organization of the government itself, were based on those Christian values. As such, it is legitimate to recognize the Christian values inherent in America’s founding and in the organization of society. It is also logical for those who recognize the effectiveness of these values to actively promote them based on the belief that this organizing principle, and these values, are best for the country.

This does not mean that supporters of the traditional American way are looking to create a theocracy. For instance:

• You can value the rule of law …
• You can value the idea of innocent until proven guilty …
• You can value an objectively real constitutional foundation …
• You can value freedom of conscience …
• You can value equal justice under the law …
• You can value the sanctity of human life …
• You can value the notion of personal responsibility …
• You can value individual liberty …
• You can value private ownership of property …

… all without having a Christian theocracy.

That being the case, there is a question that just begs to be asked: If those who do not want the nation to continue in its tradition based on Christian values, what do they wish to replace it with?

Do they want to do away with:

• the rule of law?
• innocent until proven guilty?
• an objective constitutional foundation?
• freedom of conscience?
• equal justice under the law?
• the sanctity of human life?
• the notion of personal responsibility?
• individual liberty within society?
• individual ownership of property?

All of these are specifically values the emerge from a biblical worldview.

• And asking the question from the other side: Do they really want society to be guided by values such as …
• the rule of the powerful?
• guilty until proven innocent?
• a relativistic basis for the legal system (laws interpreted based on the preferences of those in power)?
• enforced ideological conformity?
• legal bias toward and against particular groups?
• the worthlessness of human life?
• no legal jeopardy for law breakers?
• collective control of society?
• collective ownership of property?

Whether they realize it or not, people who denigrate Christians for their values are proposing that we be ordered by an entirely different set of values – values that do not have an objective foundation and which are based on moral relativism.

Just for the sake of argument, let’s say that these modern detractors get their way and their socialist values become the new societal foundation. What, then, can we say of those people? If we use the same terminology that they are using, we would have to call them “Socialist White Nationalists.” Nothing changes except for the nation’s political and economic foundation and the source of the nation’s dominant values.

Hopefully, by now, you see the implications of what is going on. Christians do not become white (or any other color) nationalists simply because they believe in Christ and promote biblical values as the best approach for organizing society. The promotion of biblical values can be quite separate from the core essence of the Christian faith.

Concerning the essence of Christianity, the starting point for all biblical Christians is a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Knowing God in a personal relationship is our essential foundation. Our primary purpose in life is to promote His kingdom, not to order society. That said, when a person knows God, their point of view transforms in a way that sees the wisdom of conforming society to the way God structured reality to exist. That way does create a level of order and personal freedom that simply does not emerge out of other belief approaches. And the truth is, because it does reflect actual reality, there are even many people who are not Christians who see the rightness of Christian principles as the underlying organizational and value basis for society.

Christianity and Christian Nationalism are two entirely different things. One is based on a spiritual, biblical foundation while the other is based on a naturalistic one. It is critical for Christians to grasp the distinction in order to push back against the false beliefs of those who would attack us, and correct their total misunderstanding of the Christian faith.

© 2022 Freddy Davis