They are going to call us Christian nationalists

Are you a Christian nationalist? If you are a conservative evangelical Christian in America today, the self-appointed guardians of secular America are going to call you a Christian nationalist. Do you believe in the defense of the unborn and that abortion should be prohibited by power of law? Then you will be labeled a Christian nationalist. Do you believe that there are two and only two genders, male and female? Then get ready to be put in the stocks as a Christian nationalist. Do you believe that your Christian convictions on these issues are to be translated into your position on questions of government policy? You guessed it: You are a Christian nationalist.

Are you afraid to be called a Christian nationalist? If you can’t stand the idea that the mavens of the mainstream media and the guardians of secular activism and theological liberalism will call you a Christian nationalist, then just announce your surrender and fly the white flag.

Am I a Christian nationalist? Frankly, it’s a term I do not choose for myself. Nevertheless, it’s used as an epithet intended to sweep the public square and the making of public policy clear of all conservative Christians. Do I want to see a state church and structural rule over the state by church authorities? No. Do I want the government to assume a liturgical responsibility or declare one form of baptism the policy of the state? No. Do I support religious liberty? Yes.

Do I believe that Christian convictions should guide my politics? Yes. Do I believe that the secular state is as secular as it claims to be? No. Christians on the political left and on the right both use theological arguments in staking positions on public issues. But the left accuses Christian conservatives of advocating Christian nationalism. They stack the deck and use the term as a scare tactic. Well, I’m not afraid of it.

In the first place, this is just the latest epithet hurled at conservative Christians in the public square. Go back to the 1970s and the left’s term of choice was radical conservative or adherent of the “far right.” Do such creatures exist? Of course they do, but the mainstream media called Ronald Reagan a radical conservative and tried to scare Americans into seeing him as a new version of Doctor Strangelove. In the 1980s the term of choice was “Christian Right,” and many of the same people on the left using the Christian nationalism term today were crusading against the Christian Right just decades ago. Other dismissive terms included “New Christian Right” and “Radical Christian Right.” Let’s get this clear: There are some scary people out there who are radical and unhealthy and mean and hateful, and who identify as both Christians and conservatives? You know such people and movements exist, but if you are determined to avoid progressivist, liberal, and secularist folks from calling you any of the above (or any chosen variant of the above), then you just have to shut up, sit down, and stay out of the contest of ideas, policies, and politics.

I don’t prefer the term “Christian nationalist” because of the dark historic overtones of nationalism in the 20th century. But, against the globalists of Davos and the ardent internationalists who want to transcend national boundaries and identities, I do assert the meaning and necessity of nations, national governments, national cultures, national allegiances, national borders, and national identities. So do the vast majority of people and peoples in the world. That certainly includes the vast majority of Americans. Recent days indicate that it suddenly includes the vast majority of Canadians as well. President Trump has singlehandedly caused a resurgence of Canadian nationalism—and that took some doing. The continental unification project of the European Union (explicitly secular) has crashed on the rocks of national identity. For example, the citizens of Poland proudly consider themselves Polish, thank you very much.

Our nation must be a defined and defensible unit. A nation requires some national idea and common culture. A nation and its people will be guided by some set of laws, and those laws will be based in some foundational moral assumptions and baseline principles. It’s high time we admit that any national government—all national governments—make laws and policies based on ontological foundations. Modern secularists want to claim that nations can be freed from such requirements, but that is rubbish. Every national government has to decide, for example, whether to affirm human dignity and protect human life, including unborn life, or to allow its destruction. Government must define marriage and, one way or another, hold to some policies governing sexual behavior and gender. There is no escape.

The foundations that gave birth to the American project of ordered liberty were grounded in Christianity. Frankly, there was no alternative. Even those who considered themselves as infidels acknowledged the nearly universal commitment to Christian morality. The language of the Declaration of Independence may not be explicitly Christian, but it is decidedly not secular.

I don’t want to see government take on the role of the church, nor do I want a government-established church or a government book of church order or worship. But I do want to see our government acknowledge that our commitment to human dignity, for example, is grounded in something greater and more substantial than the U.S. Constitution. Without question, that greater and more substantial foundation for our national project was Christianity, as even our Supreme Court has acknowledged. We cannot hang such commitments in thin air and hope for them to survive.

We must have nothing to do with antisemitism or other forms of hatred. We must define the nation by common commitments, common culture, common principles, and, to some considerable degree, a common language. Underneath those common affirmations must be some common understanding of right and wrong, good and evil, sense and nonsense. Otherwise, this nation will perish from the face of the earth.

I am thankful to be, by God’s grace, a citizen of a heavenly kingdom. For now, I am also, by God’s providence, a citizen of an earthly nation, the United States of America. I refuse to run from the field when the left cries “Christian nationalist.” I do not embrace the term, but I won’t surrender at the threat of it. Press on. We need to discuss these issues out loud, and not hide.

Note: I appreciate the strong and important argument made by my colleague Andrew Walker in his column, “It’s not too late to abandon Christian nationalism,” published yesterday. I intend my column to extend the debate in the spirit he has so graciously demonstrated. This debate isn’t going away anytime soon.