The Godless Coalition is at it once again. Over at this link,
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/christian-nationalism-patriotism/
One Dr. Thomas Kidd proves once again, how low ebb contemporary Academia has sunk. I suppose one could excuse Kidd because he is a Baptist but the Godless Coalition is an equal opportunity denominational employer when it comes to absolute academic Tom Foolery.
Below find my fisking of Dr. Thomas Kidd.
Thomas Kidd
During Donald Trump’s presidency many critics have reviled his base as adherents of “Christian nationalism.” Christian nationalism, we are told, is the real religion of Trumpian “evangelicals.” But the definition of Christian nationalism is often unclear.
Why is Christian nationalism a slippery category? First, it is usually a term of insult. Yes, the term reflects those who would describe America as a “Christian nation.” But there are far more pundits who label people as “Christian nationalists” than there are people who embrace the term themselves.
BLMc responds,
Kidd is about to give us an article bitching and moaning about Christian Nationalism but he doesn’t even bother to give a clearly defined definition as to what the Nationalism is that he is bitching and moaning about.
Let’s help Kidd out here. Christian nationalism is that people group movement that self identifies as a particular racial and ethnic people group who at the same time own the Lordship of Jesus Christ over every area of life. It stands in contrast to the current mutliculturalism social order that we are currently enduring in the lands that were once Christendom.
Thomas Kidd
Second, actual Christian nationalism is more a visceral reaction than a rationally chosen stance.
BLMc,
Since Kidd has never defined the Christian nationalism he is attacking how are we supposed to know if it is a visceral reaction or a rationally chosen stance? Kidd demonstrates here he is an idiot.
Thomas Kidd
I recently saw a yard sign that read “Make Faith Great Again: Trump 2020.” I wondered, How can re-electing Donald Trump make “faith” great again? What faith? When did it stop being great? No coherent answers would be forthcoming to such questions, but that’s the point. The sign speaks to a person’s ethnic, religious, and cultural identity in ways easier to notice than to explain.
BLMc
I did not vote Trump in 2016 or 2020 and yet I am not as mystified as to what this slogan could possibly mean as the Baylor Professor. The sign could merely be communicating that the Christian voting for Trump in 2020 would be believing that by voting for Trump in 2020 he would be supporting someone who will support the Christian faith. Now, I don’t think that highly of Trump but the sign is not as mystifying as Kidd wants to make it seem. And the answer to the Kidd’s question; “When did faith quit being great,” we might reply “when Dr. Kidd began writing articles for TGC.”
So there are plenty of coherent answers possible but the Kidd is too jejune to be able to think through what those answers might be.
Again, I don’t think voting Trump is how to make the faith great again but I understand how a Christian might wrongly (IMO) think that. And I can sure understand how Christians looking at what Biden might do in attacking the Christian faith might reason that comparatively speaking Trump would make the faith great again.
Thomas Kidd wrote,
Finally, it is often not clear whether “Christian nationalism” is referring mainly to devotion to the American nation, to the Republican Party, or to an individual politician. The Trump era has definitely produced exotic beliefs related to the president as an “anointed” ruler, as illustrated by the recent vision-induced “Jericho March.” But here I want to focus on the concept of Christian nationalism as nationalism per se.
BLM
Again… Kidd tells us he doesn’t know what the Hades he’s writing about and yet knows enough to criticize in the extreme that which he doesn’t have any idea of. It just gets curious and curious-er. All Kidd really tells us in this article is that he don’t likes Trump and he doesn’t like Christians who vote for Trump and that he calls all of this he doesn’t like “nationalism.”
Thomas Kidd,
Christian Nationalism vs. Christian Patriotism
What’s the difference between Christian nationalism (bad) and Christian patriotism (good in moderation)?
BLMc writes,
This is more torpidity coming from Thomas Kidd. Consider the definitions of the two words he puts in contrast.
Patriotism (n.)
“love of one’s country; the passion which moves a person to serve his country, either in defending it or in protecting its rights and maintaining its laws and institutions,” 1726, from patriot + -ism.
nationalism (n.)
“devotion to one’s country, national spirit or aspirations, desire for national unity, independence, or prosperity;
Thomas Kidd has put two words (patriotism and nationalism) that are synonyms and told us that one is acceptable and the other is not acceptable and that all the while not giving us the definition of the Nationalism he is critiquing. This is essay writing by the spin of the roulette table.
Thomas Kidd writes,
Political theorist Benedict Anderson described nations as “imagined communities”: though nations may be vast in geography and population, many of us cherish such intense patriotic commitment that we would lay down our lives (or those of our children) to defend our country, and to promote its power around the globe.
BLMc responds,
So, Kidd goes all postmodern by invoking the ludicrous idea that nations are imagined communities. Keep in mind that this idea of “imagined” this or that is all the postmodern rage today. We even have genders as “imagined sexuality.” So, all Kidd tells us here is that he is drinking from the pool of Rorty, Foucault, and Derrida.
Second, Kidd doesn’t tell us why it is such a terrible idea for one to lay down their life for their people and place as that people and place are being unjustly attacked by those seeking to destroy a people and place we are a part of in God’s providential assignment. The idea that nationalism automatically means promoting our power around the goal is part of the definition of Internationalism and not Nationalism.
Thomas Kidd writes,
Obviously, traditional Christians ought to limit that kind of nationalistic fervor. As “strangers and exiles on the earth,” our ultimate allegiance is to Christ’s kingdom. Our love for a non-American brother or sister in Christ should exceed our comradeship with unbelieving American patriots, whose numbers are legion.
BLMc responds,
Obviously?
Is the last sentence in that paragraph really true? St Paul in Romans 9 can say to the contrary,
3 “For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”
Does this sound like someone with a lack of love for his kinsmen?
Kidd posits a false dichotomy here by suggesting that my love for an abstract Christian Japanese (as an example) that I don’t know should be greater than my love for my unbelieving flesh and blood father (as a hypothetical example). The problem is that it is not quite as clear cut as Kidd wants to suggest that it is. It is difficult to rank bonding levels in this kind of manner and Kidd is being disingenuous in doing so.
We can agree that as Christians we can never develop an attitude that says “My country, right or wrong; still my country.” However, to suggest that there is something unseemly about love for one’s own people — yes even those not yet in Christ — is indicative that something is fundamentally wrong with the person saying such a thing.
