Was America founded on Christianity? The answer to this question may depend on your view of our nation’s history, our founding documents, or the personal beliefs of the founding fathers themselves. Recently many have begun to ask a slightly different but more important question, a question rooted in our future aspirations and not in the intentions and deeds of our past. As a believer should we support Christian Nationalism? Should the believers in a risen Christ who is supreme over all things want our nations laws, governance, identity and culture to be overtly Christian? While this idea seems good and even wise we should be cautious to embrace this idea outright not because some aspects of the ideology wouldn’t be good for all people but because our call is to put our hope and trust in Christ alone and the finished work that he has already completed. Below are 3 cautions regarding Christian Nationalism.

Laws can be a witness to our our own sinfulness but righteous laws cannot redeem.

Laws do not have the power to save

As Paul writes in Romans 1:16 it is the gospel of Christ that has the power to save us from the wrath of God. Even if a nations laws were perfect in every way we would still be no closer to the miracle of salvation that we receive when we put our hope the Gospel of a Christ. To be clear, we should want laws that are just, fair, and reflect the character of God. Laws can be a witness to our our own sinfulness but righteous laws cannot redeem. In fact Jesus himself often rebuked the Pharisees for outward displays of righteousness while being disobedient and having hearts that were far from God. Becuase our own fallen nature we could expect that our aspirations toward Christian Nationalism would have a similar effect on us. Too much focus on our laws resulting in us losing focus on the law giver who is eager to overlook our transgressions.

Our hope is in the finished work of Christ alone, we look to a future kingdom where God will reign and our ability to love and enjoy him fully will no longer be marred by our own sin and shortcomings.

Our hope is not in a Nation but in a risen Savior

As Christian’s we are encouraged to see ourselves as sojourners whose citizenship and identity is not  on this earth but in the heavenly kingdom that God has promised and prepared for us (Philippians 3:20, 1 Peter 2:1-11). However, Christian Nationalism tempts us to put our hope in the here and now, it would demand that we marry our eternal hope of the future with the political expediency today. These two things are ultimately incompatible.  Our hope is in the finished work of Christ alone, we look to a future kingdom where God will reign and our ability to love and enjoy him fully will no longer be marred by our own sin and shortcomings. This is our ultimate hope and we will get there through perserverance, prayer, and trust in the promises of God. Christian Nationalism may seem like a means to the same end but it is more likely to shift our hope away from the person of Christ altogether.

we can create a Christian nation by relying on the Gospel of Christ to create a nation of Christians

Christ resisted Christian Nationalism

We can alsongain some insight from the Gospel of John. After miraculously feeding the multitude with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, the people were amazed so much so that wanted to make Jesus king “by force.” This was Jesus’ opportunity to have a nation on earth and he rejected it (John 6:1-15). This could have been a people and nation with Jesus governing all laws, culture, and identities but he flatly refused. There should be no doubt in our minds about how great this would have been for the people of that day. Jesus would have been a just and righteous King. His decrees would have wise and effective, his military could have deployed angels and unimaginable power. He would have been the model of for Kingship and Governmental authority, but he refused. He refused not because it would not have been good but becuase our deepest needs were meet by him embracing his cross and not an earthly kingdom.

All Christians should want Christ to be glorified in every aspect of life even in our government (1 Corinthians 10:31) but the way this happens is not through state sponsored religion. Instead we can create a Christian nation by relying on the Gospel of Christ to create a nation of Christians. May the power of God be with us to this end and may he use all earhtly means even our nation itself to bring about his will.