Christian Nations but Not Christian Nationalism?

“Against Christian nationalism, FOR Christian nations.

Nationalism makes the nation-state the ultimate organizing principle, whereas Christianity makes the Kingdom of God the ultimate organizing principle—nations being subsumed under that principle.

Nationalism is the wrong priority. It takes something good (nation) and puts an overemphasis on it such that it supplants the true priority for the Christian (the Kingdom of God).”

Christopher Perone

Of course the key here in learning that Christopher is wrong is the adjective “Christian” that defines the noun “Nationalism.” A Nationalism that was indeed Christian would not be idolatrous and would not do what Mr. Perone describes.

I’m sure that some versions of Nationalism do indeed become a species of Statolatry. However, all because there are some forms of Nationalism that are unbiblical doesn’t mean there are not forms of Nationalism that are Biblical.

Yes, some forms of Nationalism can become idolatrous as they lift the Nation State above God so that in the Nation state we live and move and have our being. In these expressions of idolatrous Nationalism it is often the State as it embodies a particular race of people, that becomes God walking on the earth. However, by definition such an arrangement would not be Christian Nationalism.

What Mr. Perone describes was the Italian and German Nationalism that the fascists were doing during the 1930s. Perhaps even Spain with the rise of Franco would be included here, though that’s more debatable.

This explains why Biblical forms of Nationalism insist that authority be not located in any one Institution (the State) but rather be diffuse being embedded in multiple jurisdictions such as family (Fathers), church (Elders), state (Magistrates), and possibly others. In such Christian Nationalism, God alone is the sovereign authority with each jurisdiction operating under and with His delegated and specific authority. In such Christian Nationalism, there are thus inter-dependent authority centers that serve to delimit the sovereignty of any one authority center thus reducing the capacity for any one authority center to seek to divinize itself as God walking on the earth.

In the end there can be no Christian nations without Christian Nationalism. It’s like arguing for alcohol but without fermenting. If you have a Christian Nation you will have Christian Nationalism just as if you have alcohol you will have fermentation.

Is The Rejection of Kinism a Matter of Theological Unfaithfulness? Answering Tomes

“The maximal form (of Kinism) identifies kinism with biblical theonomy or Reformed orthodoxy and treats rejection of the system as theological unfaithfulness.”

Jonathan Tomes
Substack Series on Kinism

Now we need to pause here to ask Mr. Tomes here what are the options left to us for social order organization if we reject Kinism. This is a crucial question that nobody seems to be asking or answering, and it is a question I’ve been waving my hands and jumping up and down trying to get people to answer. Consider, that if one is determined to reject Kinism it strikes me that all that is left in its place is,

a.) Internationalism (New World Order / Communism)
b.) Civic Nationalism (Propositional Nationalism)
c.) Egalitarianism/Multi-culturalism (which Communism [a] has historically  pushed)
d.) Economic Nationalism

Inevitably choices (b) and (d) end up being (c) since (b) and (d) by definition  exclude genetic connections. Civic Nationalism and Economic nationalism operate on the basis that descent from a common ancestor is not necessary. The options, (b) and (d) operate on the basis of non-natal connections and so is inherently anti-Kinism. I would observe that all the options above end up being some form of Internationalism.

So, if those options are indeed the only other choices left to choose from besides Kinism, then I would agree that the rejection of Kinism is a matter of theological unfaithfulness, since what is being advanced by our opponents is a social order that does not reflect reality. The dilution of natural family ties and the Ordo Amoris is contrary to the way God made man to function.

People who reject Kinism must provide an alternative social order organization that isn’t egalitarian/multi-cultural and that is Biblical.

I, along with all the Kinists everywhere are waiting for that non familial social order that isn’t egalitarian/multi-cultural and that is Biblical. It strikes me that all other options, in the words of Joseph Sobran,

“… consistently attacks three basic social institutions that, by offering independent bases of action, loyalty, and authority, impede the state’s monopoly of power: private property, the family, and religion. Marxism attacks these things directly: it confiscates property, breaks up families, and persecutes worshippers. (It may be forced to come to terms with all three in order to avoid collapse, but in its early phase it tries to abolish them, and it accepts them later only as dependencies — smaller subdivisions — of the state.) Liberalism avoids the direct attack; it prefers to subvert property, family, and religion more gradually, undermining their definitions rather than attempting open violence.”

Dispensationalism I

The heresy that was never overturned in the church that gained steam at the tail end of the 19th century is called Dispensationalism. It has been a scourge upon the church since it’s inception. It’s core teaching has been that the Jews are back in the land that God promised them and that prophecy is unfolding before our eyes. Israel’s rebirth in 1948 is proof the Bible is true, and Jesus is coming back soon. The Scripture’s, in this paradigm, thus cease being about Christ and instead end up being about Israel and its return to the land, as well as the necessity for Christians to now support Israel in every way conceivable.

Should modern Christians disagree with this paradigm and push back against it you can be sure that in no time flat you will hear them being accused of being antisemitic. There is currently little room in the Reformed-Evangelical world for insisting that God has no more of a unique plan in the future for the nation-State of Israel than he does for any other people or nation state.

Yet, because of the lenses through which Dispensationalists read Scripture they can find justification for their views of the centrality of carnal Israel in God’s future plan. They turn to passages like Isaiah 66:8 and find the birth of Israel in 1948,

8 Who has heard such a thing?
Who has seen such things?
Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day?
Or shall a nation be born at once?
For as soon as Zion was in labor,
She gave birth to her children.

They go to the phrase “shall a nation be born at once,” and think that this describes Israel’s sudden birth on 14 May, 1948. Because they presuppose, given their theology, that God still has certain promises that remain unfulfilled to Israel, therefore the times must be read in terms of whether or not those promise are now being fulfilled. These promises are also commonly tied to the second coming of Jesus Christ. So, if one can rightly discern how prophecy is being fulfilled one can also track the moment when Jesus hovers over all the earth to take up His Church to “meet Him in the air” only to then ascend back into heaven with His church in order to await another 7 years (pre-trib rapture view) or 3.5 yeas (mid-trib rapture view) or 1.75 years (mid-wrath trib rapture view), depending on which flavor of Dispie one is.

This whole conceptual arrangement was never advanced by anybody prior to the 1830s or so. This is when a chap named John Nelson Darby arose in history in order to invent, along with the help of a young Scottish woman named Margaret MacDonald. MacDonald was prone to seeing visions and whom more than a few people believe was either tetched or possessed. Hearing of Macdonald’s ecstatic utterances Darby, commissioned by his denomination hustled to Scotland to investigate for himself.

 Historian Timothy Weber observed,

“He (Darby) arrived in the middle of 1830 and according to his own testimony twenty three years later, actually met MacDonald and heard her prophesy . . . Darby returned home . . . convinced that Margaret McDonald’s view of the rapture was true. He subsequently fit it into his [Dispensational] system, but never acknowledged his debt to her.”

“On the Road to Armageddon: How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend”  – pg. 24

Margaret MacDonald was merely expressing the charismania that was much in vogue in the atmosphere that she lived in yet this young lady laid the foundations for a eschatology that continues to shape most of modern Christianity today. If you embrace the dispensational view of the rapture you are the intellectual descendent of Margaret MacDonald as much as John Nelson Darby or C. I. Scofield and you have to live with the fact that before these nutjobs nobody in Church history believed in or taught the idea of a “secret rapture.”

Now, keep in mind that Darby, while not as far out on the ledge as Margaret MacDonald, was himself a sketchy character. Darby was originally an Anglican before leaving and forming the Plymouth Brethren denomination which eventually split itself into two over some of Darby’s eccentricities. His theology was so suspicious that Charles Haddon Spurgeon (a contemporary of Darby’s) inveighed against it in his “Sword & Trowel” publication.

A huge reason why folks read the Scripture in such a loopy fashion is due to the rise of the Scofield Bible. A Bible that legitimated the MacDonald/Darby doctrine of the secret hidden rapture. Scofield was a lawyer of sorts who was a con-man and who abandoned his wife and children. Prior to that he was a deserter from the Army of Northern Virginia (CSA) and was reported as a shyster in a local newspaper. By the time he was 36 he was what we would consider today “a drifter.” He was up until this time a “ne’er-do well.” It was around this time that Scofield “got religion,” and made connections with some of the movers and shakers in early Dispensationalism. One of his eventual contacts was with the prince of Dispensationalists, D. L. Moody.

Moody used the doctrine of Dispensationalism and the premillennialism that it required to move the nation away from postmillennialism that the Church and nation had largely owned as its eschatology. The reason that Moody did this is that he found premillennial dispensationalism to be an eschatology that could stitch the USA back together again after the Civil War. Moody emphasized that the Church, North and South, could come back together to the end of the grand goal of hastening the return of Jesus via mass evangelism. The promises of postmillennialism, crushed as they were by the savages of war, could be put in the rear view window and sectionalism could be healed by a joint focusing of getting people saved with a Christianity that didn’t care about political issues.

Moody brought Scofield under his wing and eventually, Scofield, who never had a lick of Christian education or training and only a small amount of training in the law, was tabbed to provide a Bible that would contain extensive notes that would reinforce Dispensational theology as “the Christian faith.” Nothing could be further from the truth. First published in 1909 and then goosed in 1917 with further glosses the Scofield study Bible (so called) notes became as “inspired” to folks as the Scriptures themselves. Placing the notes in the Bible was a genius move that suddenly allowed the dispensational movement to catch fire. Once the Scofield study Bible became the cornerstone to the blossoming “Bible College” movement combined with prophesy conference popping up all over the nation the fire was lit and what should have been exorcised as heresy was embraced by the conservative Church as a bulwark against growing liberalism in the heretofore conservative churches. The time was ripe, a vacuum had been created, and Scofield and his amazing book stepped up and filled the gap. Other popular Dispensationalists would arise but Scofield, in any telling of the story of Dispensationalism, is a key figure.

The Creeping Surveillance State

Was talking to a friend who told me a story about a family member. Said family member was connected to information that is now considered important to the FEDS. Said family member was contacted by representatives of a foreign government about this information. The family member in question told them, “I have no interest in talking to you.” Later, same family member was in the White House to discuss this information and in the discussion they admitted that they were contacted by these representatives of a foreign Government though they told the representatives to “push off.”

The Feds replied … “Yeah, we know.”

Then today I viewed Tucker Carlson’s recent conversation covering the rise of the Surveillance state abetted by technology that is multiplying across these united States. This interview reinforced how it is that the FEDS could’ve known about this otherwise private encounter noted in the first paragraph.

Bottom line … we are (all of us) constantly under surveillance by our “Masters.” We are living in a slave state and it is only going to get worse. The kind of monitoring system that is now in place and is yet to be set up in its fullness will make the Stasi ability in E. Germany to do surveillance on its citizenry (really subjects) look like children playing pretend.

Of course, throughout history this has always been one marker of a tyrant state. The structuring of all this has happened right under our noses and all without even pretending to ask, via a vote, if we wanted to be surveilled.

I remember several years ago when in Sunday School we were discussing a controversial subject and suddenly a couple guys said, “wait a minute, I have to go put my phone in the car.” I thought they were joking but they seriously did not want their phone around while discussing something controversial. They knew, even a couple years ago (or they intuited) that they could be under surveillance.

The rational for all this camera/phone/drone surveillance is “safety.” Those manufacturers of the technology (Flock Group Inc.) who are profiting from all this insist that this is good for America because it reduces crime. The problem here is that there are no stats that it is having that impact.

Of course this is all very Orwellian. It is Orwell’s incarnation of “in the State you will live, and move, and have your being.”

Do not think you are safe from all this. If there is one thing a tyrant state does well is that it constantly increases the demand for conformity. Surveillance is how that conformity is achieved. “Resistance is futile,” they can now say, “you will all be assimilated.”

The Carlson interview made it clear that the reason for all this surveillance is “safety.” This need for “safety” is the very rationale the NAPARC churches are using in crafting their statements against Christian Nationalism. “We must denounce even Biblical Nationalism because Nationalism is a threat to our safety.” The denominational mechanisms are not concerned about the safety of church members. They are concerned to create group think on this subject. That is the same goal of our FED overlords, “Safety, Safety, Safety.” In such bleating is hidden the work of tyrants, both in the NAPARC denominations and in the Federal Government.

It is clear that technology, while clearly having many advantages, will be used to toss us all into a giant FEMA camp. There will be no need for fences, or barracks because the whole nation (and even world) will be one giant FEMA camp. The fences will be provided by the ever expanding technology and every home (if you can afford one) will serve as a barracks. You can be sure that a social credit system, such as they already have in China, will, inch by inch, be forced upon us. Consider, for example, the legislation already passed to have cameras in every automobile scanning your face all the time to make sure that you are safe and it is safe to everyone else that you are on the road. All hail safety.

Of course, this could all be stopped if we would only own Christ as King, both individually and as a people. Having abandoned the Kingship of Jesus Christ we have created a vacuum that the State has now filled. The cure for all this malevolence by the FEDS is not found primarily first in armed uprisings. The cure for all this malevolence is found first in repentance. We are here because we, both individually and corporately, are in bondage to sin and bondage to sin always works itself out in eventually being a people in bondage to the State. We are slaves to the State because we are slaves to sin.

Even with all this, I remain optimistic that the Surveillance State will ultimately fail. I don’t know how long until that failure becomes manifest but it will fail. The reason that I believe the surveillance state will fail is because God has said,

He who sits in the heavens shall laugh;
The Lord shall hold the resisting Kings in derision.
5
Then He shall speak to them in His wrath,
And distress them in His deep displeasure:
6
“Yet I have [e]set My King
[f]On My holy hill of Zion.”

7
“I will declare the [g]decree:
The Lord has said to Me,
‘You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.
8
Ask of Me, and I will give You
The nations for Your inheritance,
And the ends of the earth for Your possession.
9
You shall [h]break them with a rod of iron;
You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’ ”

Political Cesspool … A brief Defense of Nationalism.

When we consider the biblical case for ethno-Nationalism we build a cumulative case that begins in Genesis at the creation of Eve. Citing R. J. Rushdoony here we observe that,

“Since Eve was created from Adam and is Adam’s reflected image of God, she was of Adam and an image of Adam as well. The meaning of this is that a true help-meet is man’s counterpart, i.e. that a cultural, racial, and especially religious similarity is needed so that the woman can truly mirror the man and be his image.”

– RJ Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law, p. 351

The point here is that in order for Eve to be a genuine helpmeet to Adam she had to be a reflection of Adam. There had to be commonality between the first man and first woman and those commonalities we would today consider to be along racial and cultural lines. From here we would insist that these very same kind of commonalities give marriages the best opportunity to be successful. It only stands to reason that in bringing a man and a woman together in marriage that you want as much common ground as possible and a large part of that common ground desired in marriage is sharing the same racial and socio-culture background.

So, the creation of Eve for Adam as one who was taken from Adam points us in the direction of ethno-nationalism given the fact that Eve was a proper fit for Adam as a helpmeet. No one really believes that Eve as Adam’s helpmeet was a decided stark contrast to Adam in her ethnic and cultural characteristics.

Citing Rushdoony again,

the whole point of marriage is that the wife be a helpmeet to her husband, and the term “helpmeet” means in effect a mirror, an image, one who reflects him spiritually; that is, in terms of faith, in terms of a common background, in terms of a common purpose. Now, marriage between persons of very different races generally doesn’t fulfill that requirement, you see.

“The Law of Divorce”

“[T]he biblical doctrine is that the wife is a helpmeet. Eve was created to be Adam’s counterpart, his image. This means, therefore, in the first marriage, which is a pattern of all marriage, there was a racial, a cultural, and especially a religious similarity and congeniality. Therefore, we must say that mixed marriages, religiously and culturally and racially, are not in conformity to the biblical standard. The wife cannot be a helpmeet, a counterpart to her husband, if she reflects an alien standard. As a result, cross-cultural marriages are normally failures.”

From Rushdoony’s sermon, ‘Marriage and Woman’

From there we see that the idea of distinct nations are first mentioned in Genesis 10 with the listed table of nations. Here we find a clear articulation of distinct nations post-flood. These nations are listed by heredity. They all share Father Noah but like branches off a common trunk the nations are named as an extension of the sons of Noah. From here the word “Nation” is used consistently in Scripture as those descended from a particular common ancestor.

The desire to build the first New World Order wherein all peoples and nations are to disappear was first concocted by a chap named Nimrod. Nimrod desired to bring all the peoples together in order to make a name for themselves as opposed to making a name for God. This was the first attempt at Empire we might say. With this commitment to a global political unity God is displeased because He knows this is a humanistic attempt to fuse all of mankind into a giant blob in order to seize divinity. In order to squelch this God confuses the language of the men of Babel so that they are forced to obey the original command to fill the earth. Genesis 10 and 11 thus form a clear articulation that God intends and delights in nations.

And the presence of nations is not limited to what we find in Genesis 10. Throughout the OT we are presented with the reality of the nations as nations as well as the continuity of nations into the New Jerusalem. For example in Isaiah 2 the prophet writes anticipating the final day,

Isaiah 2:2 And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord’S house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.3 And many people shall go and say, “Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4 And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

Here we see nations remaining in their nations on those last days. This is a theme taken up again in Isaiah 19 and again we see a promise that a day was coming when other nations would have God as their Lord and would be counted a people of God’s inheritance.

24 In that day Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria—a blessing in the midst of the land, 25 whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, “Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.”

Here we see the Spirit inspired prophet writing that in the course of history, as the Gospel would go forward other nations besides Israel would be people of God’s inheritance. Now, to undergird this as not being just my opinion allow me to cite a chap who I have cited before,

NT Calvin Seminary Reformed theologian Dr. Martin Wyngaarden offers here,

“Now the predicates of the covenant are applied in Isa. 19 to the Gentiles of the future, — “Egypt my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance,” Egypt, the people of “Jehovah of hosts,” (Isa. 19:25) is therefore also expected to live up to the covenant obligations, implied for Jehovah’s people. And Assyria comes under similar obligations and privileges. These nations are representative of the great Gentile world, to which the covenant privileges will, therefore, be extended.”

Martin J. Wyngaarden, The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011), p. 94.

And again,

“More than a dozen excellent commentaries could be mentioned that all interpret Israel as thus inclusive of Jew and Gentile, in this verse, — the Gentile adherents thus being merged with the covenant people of Israel, though each nationality remains distinct.”

“For, though Israel is frequently called Jehovah’s People, the work of his hands, his inheritance, yet these three epithets severally are applied not only to Israel, but also to Assyria and to Egypt: “Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance.” 19:25.

Thus the highest description of Jehovah’s covenant people is applied to Egypt, — “my people,” — showing that the Gentiles will share the covenant blessings, not less than Israel. Yet the several nationalities are here kept distinct, even when Gentiles share, in the covenant blessing, on a level of equality with Israel. Egypt, Assyria, and Israel are not nationally merged. And the same principles, that nationalities are not obliterated, by membership in the covenant, applies, of course, also in the New Testament dispensation.”

Martin Wyngaarden
The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture — pp. 101-102.

So, I agree with Dr. Wyngaarden that national distinctions, because they are ordained by God, do not go away even into the new Jerusalem. The reasoning is, if they remain present in the New Jerusalem in the New Heavens and earth then who are we to suggest that they are not important today and should be ignored?

But more important than what Dr. Martin Wyngaarden or I think Scripture itself bears out the continued existence of the nations into the new heavens and earth in Revelation 21,

Rev. 21:24 And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. 25 Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). 26 And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. 

Here we see the creational distinctions that God ordained in Gen. 10:5, as well as Dt. 32:8, and Acts 17:26 would be perpetually established into the eschaton.

5 From these the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.

Dt.32:8When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations,
When He separated the sons of Adam,
He set the boundaries of the peoples
According to the number of the children of Israel. 

Acts 17:26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,

Now we must end here by asking, “who is it that historically and philosophically speaking has always opposed this Christian doctrine of the nations.”

And the answer to that question is the Atheistic, Materialistic, Humanistic Marxists. The Marxists have always embraced, as central to their program, the elimination of all nations. The Marxists have always desired to rebuild the Tower of Babel.

‎”What will be the attitude of communism to existing nationalities?

The nationalities of the peoples associating themselves in accordance with the principle of community will be compelled to mingle with each other as a result of this association and hereby to dissolve themselves, just as the various estate and class distinctions must disappear through the abolition of their basis, private property.”

~ Frederick Engels in “The Principles of Communism”, 1847

Or we might consult one Nikita Khrushchev on the matter Bojidar.

“Full-scale Communist construction constitutes a new stage in the development of national relations in the U.S.S.R., in which the nations will draw still closer together until complete unity is achieved…. However, the obliteration of national distinctions and especially of language distinctions is a considerably longer process than the obliteration of class distinctions.”

Nikita Khrushchev

Or perhaps Marx himself,

“Even the natural differences within species, like racial
differences…, can and must be done away with historically.”
 
K. Marx’s Collected Works V:103,
 
As cited in S.F. Bloom’s The World of Nations: A
Study of the National Implications in the Work of Karl Marx, Columbia University Press, New York, 1941, pp. 11 & 15-19:


So, when we maintain that God delights in national distinctions we are standing with Scripture, with the Church Fathers, and against those who have most thoroughly hated Biblical Christianity.