Christian Nationalism isn’t unique to this country, and has been a motivating factor for centuries. In Chicago, I lived near a Polish Catholic Church, a remnant of this kind of movement in Poland that was as much about the formation of Poland as a modern nation-state as any ideology. This association of declaring Poland a Christian nation now carries more separatist overtones however, as Poland has like many other countries evolved beyond being served by any one religious system. And of course, there is no established Church of America, the way the Church of England still functions. Or is there?
On January 6, 2021, the United States of America experienced an armed insurrection at its national Capitol. While that event itself was shocking and disturbing, it was apparently the first time that many Americans had noticed the obscene union of Christian and patriotic symbols and we all began to decry “CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM” as yet another sin of the Trump Era.
And of course Christian Nationalism is an obscenity, and unconstitutional if not at least ideologically treasonous. But the uncomfortable truth is that this isn’t new, it is NOT of Trump and his ilk, and has been a problem for all of our national history. For the most part, we are perfectly comfortable with our polite versions of Christian Nationalism, and they are just as divisive and treacherous as any action taken that January day.
The establishment of many contemporary American denominations includes a history of political determinism. The Baptists teach that their founder Roger Williams was evicted from Pennsylvania for refusing Quakerism, and walked until he stopped and founded Rhode Island. The Episcopalians teach that the same people who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution also founded their own Canons and Constitution and established their church. Methodists teach that John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, made his final break from the Church of England when in 1784, he ordained clergy for service in the newly formed United States of America. The lessons are clear: Christians are the original political founders and the natural leaders. America itself is cast as some sort of secularized version of their own faiths.
Almost every one of these churches flies an American flag somewhere on its property. Many of these flags are within the worship space itself, and I find that deeply disturbing, but my discomfort with it all has expanded to include Houses of Worship that fly patriotic flags outside as well. The public statement of the outdoor flags is part of what perpetuates the destructive association between church and state. Public narratives matter.
But the private, religious statement of national association feels deeply opposed to all of the New Testament itself, to the Gospel of Jesus and the teachings of Paul and the struggles of those nascent communities trying to work out how to live into Jesus’ Kingdom of God. Over and over again, scripture teaches us to put aside past and automatic allegiances and to choose this Reign of God, the Beloved Community. Paul’s statement that In Christ there is no Greek nor Jew and Jesus’ questions Who is my mother? Who are my brothers and sisters? challenge every assumed relationship. Jesus' admonition upon examining a coin with the face of Caesar is relevant here: You must separate these things, even in your very heart. Give to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s. They are not the same thing.
We live out a paradox, a cognitive dissonance, a clearly hypocritical position every day in this country, and I am not sure we can survive its weight.
All month, I have been struggling with different aspects of what it means to be both a citizen of this country and an ordained minister of the Gospel. I’ve called the series “Citizen Christian” and I began with a preamble to the Fourth of July weekend. Citizen Christian is also the title of a book of sermons I compiled several years ago. I was raised with a deep ethic of faith in action, and my parents were people who easily wove public action into their private faith lives, and vice versa. Jimmy Carter is a family hero, and my brother and sister-in-law made several pilgrimages to the Carter’s church in Georgia until finally meeting them. The picture of the four of them together is one of my favorite things.
One reason the Carters are such icons in our family is their continued actions outside of public life. Their work with Habitat for Humanity is legendary, and stems from their sense of faithfulness to the Gospel, to serve others where their greatest needs are met. But another reason they stand in such an honored place is how rare the presence of this icon actually is, how infrequently a figure from the political sphere has a significant impact in making lives better after leaving office.
And so Christianity is the “normal” here but Christian action itself really isn’t. How do we square that?
We are fine with embracing a complex of “normal American” characteristics that always includes cultural if not practiced Christianity, perhaps Judaism. We rarely question the right of Churches and Houses of Worship to allow land to go unused or remain in disrepair. We allow religious systems to teach our children with minimal parameters or oversight simply because they claim a right to do so.
Religion is often used as a rationale for action within spheres that are outside of the traditional faith-based content, for corporate policy or political clout and support. We even have US Supreme Court case law codifying such things, thanks to Hobby Lobby and the conservative Christians’ obsession with controlling sexual reproduction.
But religion is rarely a reason Houses of Worship themselves move and act in those spheres. I don’t know of many churches that have adopted Water Justice or Pay Equity advocacy as faithful actions, for example. When these actions are suggested, generally the pushback is that politics have no place at church, and those things put our 501c3 status at risk, rarely true. Protest, dissent, political speech, and direct actions are all allowed activities when regarding a principle of justice, an idea, specific injustices, and occasionally public ballot measures.
I believe our churches tend to lean on this automatic association instead of actually engaging in what participation in community life means. We do not regularly examine how faith-based institutions should contribute in the moral voice of political realities and injustices, or how those things themselves are part of a greater spiritual discipline. It’s too scary, risky. We hide behind our flags, pretending they stand for an egalitarian ethic of tolerance when in fact they diffuse our adherence to the Gospel.
We have all fed the most destructive aspects of Christian Nationalism with our allegiances to a political or national identity within our churches and spiritual communities. And we have degraded our own spiritual lives by dismissing and ignoring the call to action injustice requires. It’s mutually assured destruction but we can stop it in its tracks by simply choosing differently.