Christian nationalism is the extraordinary belief that the name of Jesus can be attached to the machinery of political power and somehow make the machinery, Christian. It is the belief that the nastiest of men, operating from the nastiest of motives, have manipulate Christians into supporting the nastiest of actions, pursuing the nastiest of agendas, and then wrap the whole enterprise in the language of God, faith, family, freedom, and Christian values. The astonishing part is not merely that politicians can manipulate religion. The astonishing part is that Christians can become so invested in protecting Christianity through political power that they fail to notice how completely foreign that power can be to the way of Jesus.
And this is where the word Christian has become dangerously misleading. Christian nationalism is not Christians participating in politics. Christians have every right to participate in civic life, vote according to conscience, advocate for legislation, serve in public office, and seek justice in society. The issue is something deeper: the fusion of Jesus’s identity with national identity and the attempt to make government the guardian, enforcer, or privileged promoter of religious Christianity. That is precisely the kind of relationship scholars and survey researchers use when defining and measuring Christian nationalism
The danger began when some “Jesus Way” people started believing that the kingdom of God needs the kingdom of Caesar to protect it and sold their soul to Constantine.
Jesus never commissioned His disciples to seize governmental power so that His kingdom could survive. He said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). He did not send His disciples into the world carrying political weapons to conquer their enemies. He sent them carrying good news. He did not tell them to establish a Christian government. He told them to love their enemies, bless those who cursed them, pray for those who persecuted them, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, care for the poor, forgive their enemies, and lay down their lives for others.
The Jesus revealed in the Gospels does not need the state to make Him Lord. He does not need legislation to establish His authority. He does not need governmental coercion to make people love God. He does not need national borders to define His family. He does not need military force to defend His kingdom. And He certainly does not need politicians baptizing their ambitions in Christian vocabulary.
Jesus said, “My kingdom is not from here” (John 18:36). He said, “Whoever wants to be first must be servant of all” (Mark 9:35). He said, “The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them… but it shall not be so among you” (Matthew 20:25–26). That last statement ought to make every Christian extremely cautious about confusing the exercise of political dominance with the advance of the kingdom of God.
Because the temptation is always the same: If we can just get the right people into power, pass the right laws, control the right institutions, appoint the right judges, dominate the right cultural spaces, and defeat the right enemies, then Christianity will finally be safe.
But Christianity was never meant to be safe because Caesar protected it.
The early church conquered neither Rome nor its neighbors with political power. It conquered hearts through a crucified Messiah and a community whose defining mark was supposed to be love. Paul did not tell the church, “Take control of the empire.” He told believers, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). He told them, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” (Romans 12:20).
That sounds remarkably different from a political movement organized around identifying enemies, defeating enemies, humiliating enemies, and preserving power against enemies.
And there is another irony here. The more Christianity seeks to preserve itself through coercive political power, the more it risks becoming something Jesus never called His followers to become. Jesus warned His disciples about the rulers who exercise authority by domination and then said, “It shall not be so among you.” The kingdom’s greatness is measured not by how many people you can control but by how many people you can serve.
That is why the Christian nationalist project deserves theological scrutiny rather than just political criticism.The fundamental question is not, “Are these people conservative or liberal?” It is not even, “Are their policies good or bad?” The deeper question is: What happens when the cross is replaced by the flag as the primary symbol of Christian identity? What happens when patriotism becomes indistinguishable from discipleship? What happens when being a “good Christian” becomes synonymous with supporting a particular nation, party, leader, or political agenda? What happens when disagreement with a political program is interpreted as rebellion against God? What happens when politicians discover that religious language can mobilize millions of voters…and religious leaders discover that political power can give them influence they could never obtain through the humble way of Jesus?
At that point, Christianity can become extraordinarily useful to political power. And political power can become extraordinarily useful to Christianity. But useful to one another does not necessarily mean faithful to Jesus. A politician can quote Scripture without following Jesus. A preacher can invoke God’s name without representing God’s character. A Christian Nationalist can display crosses without carrying the cross. A nation can call itself Christian without behaving like Christ.
Jesus gave His followers a remarkably simple measuring stick: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
Not by our political victories. Not by our governmental dominance. Not by our ability to force biblical morality upon unbelievers. Not by our ability to identify enemies. Not by our ability to make America or any other nation, a Christian nation, but by our love.
And that brings us back to the extraordinary contradiction at the heart of Christian nationalism. It can begin by saying, “We must use political power to protect Christianity,” while gradually producing a Christianity that must be protected by political power because it has forgotten the power of Christ.
Jesus never told His disciples to make Christianity predominant. He told them to make disciples. He never told them to conquer nations. He told them to love their neighbors. He never told them to destroy their enemies. He told them to love their enemies. He never told them to seize Caesar’s throne. He stood before Caesar and declared that His kingdom was not from this world. And He never told His followers that God’s kingdom would advance because Christians finally gained enough political power to impose it. He told them that the kingdom was already breaking into the world through Him.
The Gospel does not need a political savior because it already has a Savior. When Christians begin looking to political power to accomplish what they once proclaimed only Christ could accomplish, the question we should be asking is not whether the government has become Christian enough. We should ask whether the Christianity has become political enough that it rejects the “Jesus Way”
Because the kingdom of God does not become more Christian when it gains power over people. It becomes visible when Christ’s love begins flowing through people.
No religion to defend, no walls of doctrine, thick and high,
No creed to weaponize, pretend that truth wears only one man’s eye.
No people to condemn, no tribe marked out for scorn or hate,
No foreign name, no alien stem too lost for grace, too far for fate.
No enemies to destroy,
No face to paint in demon’s hue.
No heart to break, no life to void,
No “them” to make the “us” feel true.
No nation to sanctify,
No flag to fold like holy writ,
No soil so sacred it can tie,
No hands of mercy, bid them quit.
No politician to canvassing the town,
No savior in a suit behind pulpits, lie.
No platform built on crumbling ground,
No promises that rot and die.
No government to save us.
No law, no throne, no gavel’s sound,
can lift the soul, can cleanse, can raise us
from dust where human hopes are drowned.
Jesus is Lord,
Not party, not regime, not brand,
Not sword of state, not a judge’s word,
But a nail-scarred open hand.
Love is the way,
Not leverage, not a means to win,
But daily bread, the narrow way
Where enemy and friend walk freely within.
Grace is the message
Unearned, unowed, unmerited,
The scandal whispered, bold, outrageous:
The lost are found, the dead are fed.
And the kingdom belongs to God,
Not Rome, not Washington, not creeds,
Not those who march with fire and rod,
But those who kneel, and love, and bleed.
So let the divisional banners fall away,
The idols crack, the thrones grow dim.
One Name remains through night and day:
Jesus, the Christ…the King of all men.
By Glenn Regular
Is There such a Thing as Christian Nationalism?
