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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman Why
Christian Nationalism Will Fail Would I like to live in
a Biblically moral nation? Yes!
Do I approve of Christians running for political office?
Yes! Do I believe in
voting your Christian conscience? Yes!
Do I believe the Bible teaches us to Christianize a nation through
government legislation and legal reform?
No! Do I support
Christian Nationalism's attempt to Christianize a nation?
No, and very briefly, here is why I say "no." From my Biblical
perspective, from Genesis 10 through to Revelation 18 the Bible portrays
all nations, none excluded, as being ungodly, humanistic, and Babylonian
in nature. That includes the
divinely-appointed nation of Israel
that continues to fail at being the Godly nation it was called to be.
In the end, all nations will fall in an act of divine judgement
(Revelation 17 and 18). Many attempts have been
made throughout history to Christianize a nation through political reform.
All have failed, the most notable being the Christianizing of the Roman Empire
in the fourth century that actually ended in the paganization of the
empire. So as a Christian, how
do I think about this issue? Jesus commanded His
apostles (Matthew 28:18 - 19) to make disciples of all nations, or of all
ethnic people, as the Greek word "ethnos" that is translated
here as "nations" suggests.
If, then, you understand the word "nations" to be a
country like America, I believe you will misunderstand this command.
For one thing, you can't baptize a country that was included in the
command. You can, however,
baptize ethnic people within a nation.
This is why the apostle Paul did not try to Christianize the Furthermore, Paul taught
that any piece of legislation or law, including God's Law of Moses, can
never make anyone a Christian (Romans 10:4, Colossians 2:13 - 14 and
elsewhere). No legislation or
law can change the evil heart of man, let alone a nation.
It's why Jesus got to the heart of the legalities of the Law of
Moses in relation to sin. He
acknowledged, for example, that the Law banned adultery, yet He went
beyond the letter of the law by saying if you lust in your heart, you
commit adultery in your heart (Matthew 5: 28).
In other words, an external sin begins with an internal sin.
If you get rid of the internal sin, you won't commit the external
sin. As Christians, we may
rise to political prominence and Christianize our national legislations
and laws, but that will never change the sinful heart of anyone, let alone
transform a life. Only God's
Spirit within a life can do that, and that only if you permit Him to do
so. We have our Bible-based
laws prohibiting murder, but we still murder.
Again, Jesus addressed the murder laws by getting to the heart of
the matter, which was an angry heart (Matthew 5:21 - 22).
From my perspective,
Christian Nationalism appears to have abandoned preaching the gospel to be
born again of the Spirit of God, replacing it with political activism.
That's not Christian, and for that reason Christian Nationalism
will fail, and as history suggests, will do more harm than good.
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