National Rancid

Apologies for my title. Regular readers won’t get it and shouldn’t be expected to.

However, here’s something you’re more likely to come across than a pun on an obscure, late-career Elvis Costello album title: the online debate over Christian Nationalism is getting hotter and more acrimonious by the week, and with good reason. Young men are drawn to CN like moths to a flame, starved for something useful to do, a cause to stand for, and any sense that clear lines about political realities are finally being drawn within evangelicalism.

In response, their older brothers in Christ are hunkering down, clinging to old paradigms and traditional worldviews. Some of them are shouting “Sinful!” at the top of their lungs, and in a few cases — fewer than they think, I firmly believe — they may even be right.

May we consider the issues in the abstract, without attaching names and specifics, and avoid generating heat? We will soon see …

What’s It All About?

So then, what is all the hoo-hah about? Well, the growing division falls along several different lines. I’ll examine each and propose what I believe is a moderate and, perhaps, more useful position than the extremes at either end of the spectrum for Christians confronting and in some cases embracing Christian Nationalism.

1/ Sex

If women had their way, Kamala Harris would be president today, notwithstanding her unprecedented shortcomings for the office. Bill Clinton was ten times more trustworthy and almost as sexually continent. Six in ten Harris voters just wanted a “sister” as president. What a lame reason to vote for anyone!

Even though more women voted for Donald Trump in 2024 than in 2020, the gap between the sexes (ten points each way, 54/44) was still significant. Women who voted for Big Orange 47 were more worried about household expenses than abortion rights, from which we may conclude they were mostly married; single women overwhelmingly voted for Harris.

Trump voters and Christian Nationalists are not identical demographics, but there is considerable overlap. Christian Nationalism is not popular with single or married women; the majority of women view anything potentially disruptive or non-inclusive as worrisome at very least. The reason is probably empathy as much as concern for their own safety or that of their families. The hottest subject in the weeks before the election among the women I work with was the fear that Trump, if elected, would deport hard-working illegals, potentially breaking up families. Men, including Christian men, are far more likely to view the deportation of illegals as not only prudent but even necessary.

Christian Nationalism is a young man’s movement. It remains to be seen if Christian women will ever come aboard in large numbers. For older Christian men, if something panics their wives they are more likely to view it with suspicion, or at least be reluctant to embrace it publicly.

2/ Prophetic View

The debate over Christian Nationalism is huge among the Reformed, especially Amillennials and Post-millennials. I have yet to see it discussed by Dispensationalists online at all, anywhere. Either we are deliberately keeping a low profile on the subject, or we know it’s a lost cause. You tell me.

On reflection, this makes sense. If one’s eschatology leads one to believe that Christ’s return will not come until the nations are fully discipled by the Church, the next logical question is “Well, what should I be doing about that right now?” The answer for many young men in the Reformed camp is Christian Nationalism. Let’s disciple those nations. Young Christian men correctly reject globalism, but that can lead to an overemphasis on protecting the nations of the West from sheltering so many “sojourners” that they lose their own ethnic identity. Taken to extremes, such concerns can become far more “white” than they ought to.

Where do dispensationalists stand on this? I guess we are not saying. For many of us who are looking for the return of the Lord around the next corner, the genetic purity of the nations when he returns is not a high priority.

3/ Israel

Again, this comes down to one’s view of scripture. Supersessionists teach the Church has forever replaced national Israel in the plans and purposes of God, and young Christian men are increasingly embracing supersessionism along with the rest of the Reformed package. Dispensationalists, on the other hand, believe in an earthly future of blessing for Israel distinct from the blessings and destiny of the Church.

You would think that since we are all Christians, at very least we could agree about how we ought to think and feel about Zionism, but that is not the case. Most comments from supersessionists online strongly suggest they would prefer Jews be dispersed among the nations once again rather than have hostilities continue in Gaza, or at least that they view yet another diaspora as inevitable. Older Christians tend to see national Israel as a miracle that portends the second coming of Christ, and may find themselves defending even the more questionable actions of a secular, anti-Christian nation uncritically. In their excitement to see prophecy fulfilled in their lifetimes, some older Christians fret that Christian Nationalists critical of Israeli policies are all rabid Jew-haters, but the reality is not that extreme. Perhaps because of their youth and limited experience, Christian Nationalists simply haven’t thought the matter through to its inevitable conclusion. Another diaspora would give Muslims and real anti-Semites exactly what they are looking for: the opportunity to easily exterminate Jews worldwide. Even Reformed Christians don’t want that, or at least as Christians they shouldn’t. The necessity of Palestine as a safe haven for a hated people is becoming increasingly obvious to me, at least.

There’s no reason Christian Nationalists need to be anti-Semitic. Many are not. For the most part, they are frustrated kids who happen to have noticed the horrendous damage politically active Jews have inflicted on the West (like the war in Ukraine or out-of-control immigration), and are irritated with their elders for constantly telling them to shut up about it in case they bring the faith into disrepute by being thought racist. Unfortunately, there is a definite tendency in this direction, and a whole bunch of people who have noticed the same thing constantly talking about it doesn’t help.

4/ Multiculturalism

Older Christians have lived with the promotion of multiculturalism for so many years that many of us are inclined to excuse any amount of it even as it reaches levels dangerous to public safety. Ask Minnesotans from a Scandinavian background how they feel about the deluge of “Somali-Americans” dumped in their midst over the last two decades and you may get a different response. Again, young Christian men have noticed a real problem, and will not accept it being hand-waved away with reference to the Old Testament’s “welcome the sojourner” subtheme or the New Testament’s “neither Jew nor Gentile” language. Neither apply to out-of-control mass immigration, which is actually a species of war.

Old and young Christians will continue to disagree about immigration so long as we are forced to listen to endless happy talk about how “immigration is bringing the mission field to us”. Sure, and how are we doing in winning them to Christ? How many new mosques have sprouted up in your community in the last decade, and how many ex-Muslims have joined your church? Do those numbers look good for the long-term health and well-being of your unsaved neighbors? Do the riots in support of Hamas and condemning Jews, Christians and even the nations that shelter them have anything to do with the fact that Canada now has almost five times as many Muslims as Jews?

These questions should answer themselves, but often don’t, possibly because a non-trivial subset of older Christians have been voting the wrong way with respect to the multiculturalism question for at least a couple of decades and would hate to think their politics had done real damage to their neighbors. So-called “African Americans” have been in the US for hundreds of years, yet millions still see themselves as more African than American. The political answers to such questions are complex and beyond the scope of most Christians, but that does not mean it’s either wise or Christian to ignore them, or to shout down those who do as racist.

5/ The Need for Action

Christian differences concerning these realities are most obvious at the level of action: What should we be doing? Believers may rightly ask the question.

Christian Nationalists answer it with Organize, Promote, Vote and Pressure Your Politicians. Dispensationalists and older Christians will generally say, “Preach the gospel”, with the stated or unstated corollary that the gospel alone should be sufficient and that taking public positions for a Christian nation is likely to make the gospel efforts of others more difficult or bring the Christian faith into disrespect.

On that count, I expect we will continue to disagree.

What Can We Do About It?

There’s no denying many of our fellow believers are getting militant, and that it’s causing a fair bit of misunderstanding and unease in Christian circles, especially online, where these things have a tendency to be discussed more directly. So what can we do about it? Presumably our goal is unity; not, on the one hand, embracing a cause that may be a questionable priority for believers, or, on the other, entrenching into traditionalism for the sake of not giving an inch. Neither option is desirable. Not all nationalism is rancid, and we need to find out where people are in their thinking before we leap to judgments about their motives and goals.

• Regarding the sex divide, women will always be more empathetic than men, and men will always have a greater tendency to kneejerk against the real-world problems excessive empathy causes. For Christian women, realize that “love your neighbor” means your actual neighbor right now, not some hypothetical neighbor your policies might one day protect. For Christian men, understand that neither fear nor toxic empathy are good reasons to do anything. Our reasons must be biblical, not emotional.
• Regarding prophecy, some younger Reformed Christians really need to rein in their tendency toward activism, or at least moderate it in Christian ways. One can quietly work toward the goal of a Christian nation without bringing the name of Christ into disrepute. Likewise, dispensationalists should not let our natural passivity cause us to react to the decline of the nations in which we live with indifference. We can “wait for his Son from heaven” without falling asleep in the process. Yes, the Lord’s return may be right around the corner. Equally, it may not, as many Christians over the centuries have discovered. There is value in attending to our role as salt and light in the world.
• Regarding Israel, everybody needs somewhere safe to live. Even if you think the Church has replaced Israel in the plans and purposes of God, any political idea or initiative that puts Jews in greater danger is not a moral, Christian position. On the other hand, the fact that God has a plan for the future of national Israel should not inspire indiscriminate support among Christians for secular Jewish political positions, not least because many of them have been hugely destructive to our own nations. Each situation needs to be considered on its own merits or demerits.
• Regarding multiculturalism, at the micro level (individuals of principle like Ruth, Rahab or Uriah) it is biblical, at the macro level (tens of millions from each of many nations) it is Babelism. The current levels of mass immigration promoted by globalists in and outside the US and Canada amount to a war on the West that is massively costly to the taxpayer and entirely unsustainable. There is no such thing as a “proposition nation” and never will be. Outside of Christ, ethnic solidarity will eventually always win out over ideas, good or bad. Exceptional individuals may genuinely change national allegiances, but mixing iron and clay as policy always tends toward instability. Some older Christians are sadly in denial about that. Realism about these issues tends to unity, whereas entrenchment in error tends toward misunderstandings with those who have seen through it.
• Finally, regarding the need for action, one can work toward a more cohesive and more moral national identity through prayer, voting, and by thinking and speaking biblically and rationally about these things. But I do not picture Simon the Zealot investing his life in political causes after the ascension of the Lord Jesus, and I don’t believe that excessive investment in nationalist causes, organizing, online debate or heated rhetoric between believers help much of anything. We really do have greater causes to be concerned with.

Perhaps a move away from rancid nationalism starts with recognizing and acknowledging respectfully what’s prompting it in so many young, otherwise useful Christian young men, rather than just dismissing their concerns out of hand.

Or we can just sit and watch while they all go Reformed. Your move.