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The King is born, His reign begun
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Competing Kingdoms are now over-run

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Merry Christmas on this Festive Day

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.

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.

Christmas Eve day 2020 and I am surrounded by our twelve living grandchildren. Of course, 12 grandchildren ages 8 and under means a certain amount of bedlam. God says that I am surrounded by wealth and riches unspeakable. And so I am.

I can’t help but look both backwards and forwards. Looking backwards I remember when I was the age of my grandchildren celebrating Christmas at my own Grandparent’s homes. Did they look at me and fast forward 55 years in their mind’s eyes to see me as a Grandparent with grandchildren of my own playing about my feet as I now am looking into the future in my mind’s eyes to see my own grandchildren as grandparents with their grandchildren celebrating Christmas at their homes. It is the idea of generational continuity that finds me thoughtful. Will my grandchildren attend Christmas Eve or Christmas morning services with their grandchildren when they are grandparents? Will they and their seed honour Christ? What will the world be like in 55 years when my grandchildren are grandparents with grandchildren of their own? Will they remember Jane and I as I yearly remember my grandparents during this time of year?

As a child, Christmas at my Maternal Grandparents was about milking the cows and doing the chores. Only then, in the later evening, was Christmas celebrated. A late-night meal. It always seemed like we were eating these huge meals at Mid-night. Such was life on the farm. The meals were followed by large servings of Schwann’s Butter Pecan Ice Cream sprinkled liberally with Nestles Powdered chocolate. Then we would break out the euchre folding tables. Euchre and to a lesser extent Parcheesi were staples at the Jacobs household. I was my grandparents oldest grandchild and while I remember numerous cousins running about they were considerably younger and I don’t remember a great deal of interaction with my younger cousins.

If we were at my Grandma McAtee’s it was a meal with all hands on deck to help. Grandma McAtee had a hand pump in her house for her running water and so in order to do the dishes after the meal, it was required to heat the water up on the stove. Archie brand cookies were always the treat there and her family game of preference was Aggravation.

My father was a man who did not have peace in his soul and so holidays seldom ended peacefully. To this day I remain saddened for my Mother who I’m sure was distressed by the lack of peace in the home. This is one reason why I so desperately desire the grandchildren to have pleasant memories of Christmas at Pop Pop and Noni’s home. It is possible in 55 years they will be doing something like this chronicling their Christmas memories about their childhood while wondering what kind of Christmas memories their grandchildren will one day own. I hope those Christmas chronicles they might record will be bespeckled with joy and warmth.

A promise to crush the dragon’s head
A Kinsman Redeemer to deliver my soul
The Passover becoming our living bread
A serpent hoisted high on a pole
Christmas in Scripture has Christ as the goal

A goat led away to remove all our sin
Another goat slaughtered so as to atone
Blood on the mercy seat sprinkled within
Prophets deserted and suffering alone
Christmas in Scripture is how Christ is known

Smoking pots, and slain beasts lying in half
Sacrifices and Covenant and the promised seed
An ark in which is Christ and a child named laugh
Priests in the Holy of Holies, standing to plead
Christmas in Scripture is our doctrine and creed