Here we continue to fisk the absolute idiocy of political theory wrapped in the Cross as offered by the Godless Coalition. You can access the original article here.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/christian-nationalism-patriotism/
The author is one Thomas Kidd; Exemplar of Academic torpidity often put on display @ the Godless Coalition.
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,
Here Kidd starts going all R2K (Anabaptist) on us. We find that understandable coming from a Baptist. It is when Horton, Hart, Van Drunen, and Clark start this routine that finds us suddenly going all WTF.
It is true that our ultimate allegiance is to Christ’s Kingdom but does that mean that therefore I should not have any allegiance to my children and grandchildren? Because of my ultimate allegiance to Christ’s Kingdom does that mean I need not care for my parents when they are elderly? What is Kidd trying to prove by the reality that my ultimate allegiance belongs to Christ. Ultimate allegiance does not universally negate all other allegiances such as lesser but still powerful allegiance to people and place.
Thomas Kidd writes,
But measured patriotism still seems appropriate, and somewhat unavoidable for most Christians. Even Romans 13’s injunction to be “subject to the governing authorities” suggests a default support for your nation. If nothing else, we pray for our leaders and communities so that, as 1 Timothy 2 puts it, believers “may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” When believers can live that kind of life in a nation (as they often have in America), we should be grateful. (See Kevin DeYoung’s helpful reflections on our national history and identity.)
BLMc responds,
Kidd calls for “measured patriotism.” But how measured is measured?
And don’t bother with DeYoung. He’s another perp who belongs to the Godless Coalition and does more harm than good to the cause of Christ like his co-authors at TGC.
Thomas Kidd writes,
America has long nurtured more problematic forms of Christian nationalism, though. In this, the United States is hardly alone. British nationalism was an enormously powerful commitment for white American colonists, one that most patriots only broke with great reluctance in 1776. Communist nations like North Korea also engender virulent forms of nationalism, since official atheism needs transcendent national commitments to fill the void usually occupied by theistic civil religion.
BLMc responds,
First of all in 1776 the universe of American colonists was, a handful of exceptions here or there, were white American colonists.
Second… did Kidd really just compare the British colonists with their Nationalism to the Nationalism of atheistic North Korea Communism?
Look, I’m quite willing to admit that Nationalism can become an idolatrous replacement for Biblical Christianity but does anyone really believe that the chief idolatrous problem we have in the contemporary American church is the idolatry of White Nationalism? Quite to the contrary I would say the chief idolatry of the church in America is the cosmopolitan Church-olatry of men like Horton, Kidd, Clark, etc. Their idol god is the god of deracinated man who belongs to nothing or to no one except some kind of god who has an abstract definition. Their god is the god of the conceptual idea that exists only between their ears. Their god is the god of the universal abstraction, the god of the man who has nothing to die for and no loyalties to cherish, the god of the rootless and the alien. I hate their God and I hate them when they seek to turn the God of the Bible into that idol god.
Thomas Kidd writes,
Still, since “evangelicals” (usually meaning white religious Republicans) are the Americans most often accused of Christian nationalism, it would behoove those of us who still accept the “evangelical” label to consider nationalism’s history.
BLMc responds,
Here it becomes clear that Kidd is not only being influenced by postmodernism and Anabaptist ideas but he is also quaffing the potions of Critical race theory. Kidd sprinkles the rest of his piece with White people in his sites. I can only conclude that someone who is animated by postmodern, Anabaptist, and Critical Race Theory assumptions is not a person I should take as Christian since Christianity opposes all these ideas.
I will offer again here that as we consider the history of Nationalism it is certainly the case that it has, at times, been a idolatrous curse. I am thinking of Billy Sunday’s revivals that ended with male converts going behind the stage to enlist into the US Army to fight in that cursed WW I. I am thinking of that cursed Nationalism that found American children pledging allegiance to the flag. I am thinking of that cursed Nationalism that Lincoln invoked that sent a Jacobin animated North to kill their Southern Christian countrymen. There is plenty to curse about the misuse of Nationalism in American history but somehow I think the things I curse the Thomas Kidds of the world would salute.
The exception I take to Kidd’s piece is the blanket condemnation of something he never defines. Nationalism as under the authority of Jesus Christ is not sinful.
Thomas Kidd writes,
History of Christian Nationalism
In The Cross of War: Christian Nationalism and U.S. Expansion in the Spanish-American War, Matthew McCullough defines American Christian nationalism as “an understanding of American identity and significance held by Christians wherein the nation is a central actor in the world-historical purposes of the Christian God.” War has generated the “strongest expressions of Christian nationalism,” he explains. As McCullough and others have shown, Christian nationalism can give an exaggerated transcendent meaning to American history, and undergird American militarism.
BLMc responds,
Certainly the nation, without being THE central actor in the world-historical purposes of God is a central actor in the world-historical purposes of God. We find the centrality of the nations all through Scripture. To deny that is to misread scripture is a major way.
I would agree that war is often used to get a cheap nationalism reaction from a dullard people who do not really understand nationalism.
Thomas Kidd writes,
Christian nationalism has often changed over America’s history. It originally took the form of British Protestant nationalism aligned against Catholic national powers, especially France and Spain. Britain became America’s rival in the Revolution and the War of 1812. Other Americans became the great national enemy during the Civil War. But today’s Christian nationalism dates back to the Cold War.
BLMc responds,
Here Kidd seems unable to understand what we were facing in the Cold War. Communism was a real existential threat and while the hats the West wore were hardly pure white they were white enough to be overwhelmingly distinct from the black hats the Christ hating atheistic blood spattered Communists were wearing. If it took a sometimes misguided nationalism to beat back Communism rolling over the whole globe then so much the better of that misguided nationalism. Has Kidd read Whitaker Chambers? Has Kidd read Solzhenitsyn? Has Kidd read “The Black Book of Communism?” Does Kidd know what the remnants of Christendom were facing as looking in the devil’s eyes of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Minh, Castro, etc?
Thomas Kidd writes,
In many ways, the fight against Soviet communism set the modern template for white evangelical engagement with politics. This helps explain why many of today’s most ardent adherents of Christian nationalism are also children of the Cold War. White evangelical leaders, especially Billy Graham, framed the Cold War as a conflict between the Christian values of America and the atheism of the Soviets. (White people have been the primary, though not exclusive, purveyors of Christian nationalism, partly because they have been great beneficiaries of American national power.) As Graham would later admit, this spiritual framing led him and other evangelicals to see almost everything about Cold War politics through spiritual lenses. Thus, whoever was toughest on communism (e.g., Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, or Ronald Reagan) got transformed into Christian warriors who had God on their side.
BLMc responds,
Notice Kidd’s repeated use of the word “white.” Is Kidd afflicted with self hatred over his being white?
First, Kidd is just wrong about Billy Graham. Maybe he has forgotten Graham’s trip to the USSR? A trip that gave legitimacy to the USSR at a time when they desperately needed Western legitimacy. Graham was no friend of Christian Nationalism.
Second, I find Kidd’s commentary about the Cold War indicative that the man knows next to nothing about the horrors of Communism. The problem with especially Eisenhower, but also Nixon, and Reagan is that they were not enough anti-Communist. I wish it really were the case that Ike, Tricky Dick, and Reagan really had been Christian warriors, but Eisenhower was a fellow traveler, Nixon shook hands with the beast Mao, and Reagan allowed the Reds to shoot down passenger planes with Americans on board.
Thomas Kidd writes,
The details of a politician’s personal faith didn’t matter so much as their bona fides as a Cold War stalwart. This association of Republican politicians with the cause of Christian nationalism became more pronounced when the GOP, out of both opportunism and principle, identified itself as the pro-life party after Roe v. Wade (1973). The fact that most traditional Protestants in America correctly regarded abortion as gravely immoral made it even more difficult, ironically, to maintain clear boundaries between Christian identity, Republican politics, and the American nation. As the secular left in the post-Vietnam War era portrayed American history as morally mixed, if not relentlessly abominable, key white evangelicals responded with “God and country” celebrations, even at church services, and with the formation of the Moral Majority.
BLMc responds,
Notice the self-loathing use of the word “white” above. It certainly seems to be the case that Kidd hates his own people.
Notice also how much ink Kidd spills on the evils of white people and their errant Nationalism and yet nary a word from the man on the evils of Black Nationalism as found in Black Lives Matter. Where are his long jeremiads against Antifa and their rioting this past summer?
Notice finally, how Kidd talks about the secular-left and its analysis of white America, and yet he says nothing about the bankruptcy of the secular left in terms of their ability to do sane analysis. This is the same post-Vietnam War era left who pushed abortion, sodomy, unilateral disarmament, New World Order policies, women in the military, sodomite marriage, sodomites adopting children, etc. Kidd wants to suggest the reprobate left somehow had some kind of morally superior vantage point from which to critique the bankrupted right? It is my conviction that Kidd is a man of the left posing as a Christian.
“Nationalism under the authority of Christ is not sinful”. Amen!!