Rebranding Christian Nationalism

Sometimes ideas, like brands, need a refresh and rebranding to stand the test of time. And sometimes they don't. It's tricky business as Cracker Barrel has just found out. They recently streamlined their logo and restaurant decor to the chagrin of many people who like to feel like they're eating pancakes at grandma's tchotchke-full house. I know I love me some biscuits and gravy alongside a good peg game and cast iron griddle in the shape of an ear of corn. Who doesn't?

But enough about breakfast and wooden puzzles. Some things, like the old Cracker Barrel schtick, are sacrosanct and ever should remain. The rebrand I have in mind to discuss is around the term and concept, "Christian Nationalism" (hereafter, CN). A word-combo so electric and explosive that it alarms many on the Left and the Right. Perhaps the words or concepts could use a makeover for the current time? Perhaps, unlike Cracker Barrel, it is high-time to rebrand.

I have heard that there is a Japanese blessing that goes, "May you live in interesting times." Now I don't know if that is true and haven't taken the time to fact check it with ChatGPT AI, but for the purpose of giving this blog a rhetorical flourish, I'm going to run with it... What kind of times are we living in?

Just a few years ago, progressive woke culture seemed to be in its permanent ascendancy. Joy Reid had her own social justice warrior TV show on MSNBC. Stephen Colbert gleefully danced on late night TV to choreographed syringes promoting vaccine safety. Variegated transgender pronouns were proliferating on LinkedIn profiles and corporate email signatures. Target was selling LGBTQ merch for children and infants. Donald Trump was not only banned from Twitter - he was tried and convicted as a "felon" (air quotes with my fingers) destined for time in prison. Body positivity, septum rings, purple hair, and trans-humanism were not restricted to characters on a satirical episode of Portlandia. In fact, they were widely celebrated at the Paris Summer Olympics as the new global standards of truth, beauty, and goodness. These were heady times for the progressive Left and the bespectacled Rachel Maddows and Keith Olbermanns of the world. You could just taste the social justice that was thick in the air. And boy, was it ever thick. But in what has been rightly described as a "vibe shift," it is almost as if much of this never happened... Joy Reid's show - cancelled. MSNBC has been spun-off from the Peacock network and rebranded as MS NOW. Stephen Colbert and the legacy of Letterman's Late Show on CBS are slated for termination. Left-leaning Twitter was bought by billionaire Elon Musk and re-calibrated as hyper-libertarian X. The convicted "felon," Donald Trump, never stepped foot in prison. In fact, he stepped into office for his 2nd term as POTUS and completely dominates the social media / news cycle 24/7/365 with more "tweets" than ever. Heck, a Nobel peace prize is even in the offing. Target is once again waving the American flag and trans-human pronouns are freely mocked by freshly liberated comedians. Sydney Sweeney - with blond hair, blue eyes, an hourglass figure and no body piercings is even bringing back modeling as we once knew it. Charlie Kirk is almost a household name, Joe Rogan is making serious inquiries into the Christian faith, and Fox News celebrity, Pete Hegseth, is Secretary of Defense.

Interesting times, indeed.

Of course, I'm only scratching the surface of our cultural moment, but I think you know what I'm getting at. The zeitgeist has shifted pretty radically away from totalitarian progressivism and it has been amazing to behold and experience. But perhaps the most interesting development for me has been the growing energy around the topic of CN. Namely, is part of the cultural vibe shift coming from Christians who are determined to create a totalitarian Christian theocracy in the United States and elsewhere? Left-leaning Christians, prominent Evangelicals, and elements of the media are disturbed by the possibility, to say the least.

The most recent episode high-lighting their concerns was manifested by CNN doing an expose on high-profile Christian Nationalist, Douglas Wilson, from Moscow, ID. In response, Russell Moore, the editor of Christianity Today excoriated Wilson and his "Satanic" ilk as dangerous leaders of "losers." The largest conservative Presbyterian denomination in the United States recently commissioned a study committee on CN so that they can speak into the matter and ostensibly purify their ranks. In an effort to stop the intramural food-fight within American Christianity, David Bahnsen, the venerable founder/CIO of the wealth management firm I work for has even offered to broker a deliberative peace-making summit over high-end steaks and vino.

Part of me is meme-style breaking out a box of popcorn like Michael Jackson at the movies. This is shaping up to be a real doozy. Truth be told, I have no dog in this fight outside of being a Christian and an interested American citizen. I am not a vocational theologian, pastor, or "Master of the Universe" level player with a platform, leverage, or influence. I'm just a guy trying to do my day job and provide for my family. BUT. As a "pajama philosopher," I have a strong native interest in these things and at this moment I feel like maybe we could all use a little Sunday School lesson on what the Bible has to say about church and state.

Now as Americans, we generally have some civics-level understanding about the "separation of church and state" as coined by Thomas Jefferson. We understand that the United States is not constitutionally designed to endorse, support, or defend any particular denomination or faith tradition. In deliberate contrast to our original mother country, England, we have no established state church. There is no "Church of the United States" with a king or President as its official head. The Constitution may have leveraged the borrowed capital of a Judeo-Christian worldview matrix, but it did not explicitly tie itself to any particular expression of it.

Unfortunately, most Americans and American Christians don't understand what the Bible teaches about the relationship between church and state. And that's probably because most people do not care to know. But in the spirit of today's current CN controversy, it seems like it would be prudent to at least introduce some basic frameworks - so grab some graham crackers and kool-aid and let's do some remedial Sunday School...

Division of Power - Swords & Keys

It turns out that the Bible is not entirely silent on matters pertaining to church and state. One of the most basic distinctions it holds forth has to do with the way each holds and expresses power in the world. The state is said to have the power of the "sword" and the church is said to have the power of the "keys." What does this all mean?

In part, it means that the state alone holds the "sword" of coercive physical power to make war, execute the death penalty, imprison bodies, extract taxes, and otherwise enforce the law. The negative power given to the state is for the purpose of retributive justice and formal deterrence so that we might have quiet in the land, so to speak.

The church is NOT granted this physical coercive power of the sword. Rather, it is given the power of the "keys" to open and lock the door to the kingdom of God. It opens the door by the proclamation and persuasion of the Gospel and closes the door through communal discipline by withholding sacraments. It is not a power of force, but of individual conscience and participation in sacred community. The mission of the church is to "make disciples" through teaching and personal apprenticeship, not to forcibly conscript unpersuaded members to its ranks.

Consider this table as a simple summary of the division of these powers:

Hopefully this all seems straightforward enough, but what is the relationship between these two entities? For that, we will consider four possible Venn diagrams:

Venn Diagrams of Church & State

Let's start by conceptualizing church and state as individual "spheres" of power. This may beg the question - "which state and which church?" For the purpose of this exercise, we will think of "church" as any particular faith expression that has its own form of organized polity and we will conceptualize "state" as any form of civil organization. This thought experiment is not meant to identify any particular faith tradition, denomination, or form of civil state. It is simply to tease out how these distinct powers might relate to one another.

Erastianism (The State encircles the church):

This is the arrangement we have seen in England during much of its history. The monarch is both the head of the state and the church. So not only is the Church of England the official state church, it is actually governed by the head of state. The head of state is then able to use the apparatus of the sword to enforce discipline within the church. It is not hard to imagine how this conflation of powers also leads to false professors of faith in order to be aligned with the power of the state. Corrupt priests looking to curry the favor and resources of the state - what could go wrong?

Theocracy (The church encircles the State):

A current example of a theocracy is modern day Iran, where the Supreme Leader is a religious cleric who holds all religious and political authority. Women in America may fear a Handmaiden's Tale vision of theocratic America, but women in Iran live this reality every single day. Religious standards of things like everyday dress become civic standards with criminal penalties. (This dynamic creates real questions about the progressive Left's shocking alignment to Palestinians with deeply theocratic and totalitarian commitments, but I digress.) While some forms and adherents of CN may not subscribe to theocracy in a formal way, for our purposes, we will assume that most CN critics conceptualize it with this Venn diagram. And insofar as CN IS expressed in a theocratic manner, I believe it opens itself to legitimate criticism.

Secularism (The Church & State are distinct AND separate):

We are all familiar with this arrangement because it is more or less the world we live in as Americans. Of course, many progressives would argue that the religious right has had an undue influence on various political issues now and in the past, but I think it is safe to argue that no "church" has official sanction to write laws or take up the sword. It should be noted that this particular arrangement of religion and the state is rather novel in history. Most expressions of government through history have been a formal fusion of priest and king/queen.

The gnawing question that secularism leaves us with is - from whence does the state derive its morality and moral authority to determine right and wrong? On what occasions is it morally right for the state to use its coercive powers? If the answer is that the secular state simply is guided by, "the people," we are stuck with the same question. From whence do "the people" derive their morality and is such a thing merely determined by the whims and tyranny of transient mobs? The internal cultural tug-of-war we increasingly feel in our country over diverging and competing moralities is not an accidental feature of secularism, but one of its most pesky and threatening bugs. The fantasy-myth of secular moral neutrality is staring us square in the face. Please re-read my intro if it helps refresh your memory...

Disciple State (church & State are distinct not separate):

You may recall that prior to Christ's ascension, He gave his "Great Commission," which was to "make disciples of the nations... teaching them to obey all that I have commanded." There is an awful lot to unpack in His directive, but I want to suggest that what He prescribed was the pursuit of "Disciple States." I would like to contrast this with the specter of theocratic CN that has been objectionable to so many. In this arrangement, there is no confusion of powers - they remain distinct. However, they are not altogether separate because the state must be instructed in morality - in knowing right from wrong.

Please notice that as a faithful Protestant, I have used a plurality of churches as opposed to one church - inferring that my understanding of the church is less institutional than prophetic and decentralized across many people. The Christian "church" exists wherever the apostolic witness (Scripture) is faithfully proclaimed and the sacraments are duly celebrated. A Disciple State vision does not require a monolithically unified organization - only a common witness and communal practice from which the faithful operate.

If this seems like a stretch, you might be surprised to learn that Martin Luther King Jr actually said,

"The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority."

Morality is not ultimately decided because an empowered majority or minority deems it so. This kind of collectivist/totalitarian ethos lies at the heart of Nazism and fascism.

To be clear, this does not mean that everything deemed to be wrong or "sin" would be criminalized by the state. It also does not mean that every citizen would be forcibly joined to a particular faith. It is possible to have religious freedom of conscience and plurality under such an arrangement. For example, before certain Islamic countries were radicalized by anti-Western sentiment, it was not uncommon for them to be home to thriving Christian communities. The point is that a Disciple State structure is not de facto or de jure anti-pluralist. It would simply be against an impossibly neutral "prescriptive" pluralism that says all moralities and worldviews are on equal footing when it comes to civic life.

Working through all the thorny practical questions this arrangement raises is beyond the scope of this blog. The point here is to sketch the logical possibilities for future exploration and contemplation.

Understanding the Kingdom of God

On a Christian intramural basis, this raises significant questions about our understanding of the "kingdom of God." For many American evangelicals (dispensationalists), the kingdom of God is almost totally futurized - it is not a present reality in any respect. Suggesting that the kingdom of God may have a relationship to civic power structures is not something they are prepared to accept outside of activist Christians in the voting booth. For them, this world is ripe for burning up in judgment and the level best we can do is save souls from damnation.

But the majority report within most Christian traditions is that there is a sense in which the kingdom of God is "already and not yet." It has truly been initiated and inaugurated, but it has not been fully consummated. Some traditions of this persuasion locate that inaugural kingdom presence exclusively within the church. That is, they believe the church alone is a heavenly outpost of sorts in a dark and foreign land. Christians may be ambassadors of a heavenly country, but we are not bringing the heavenly country with us. We only offer a foretaste of the kingdom through our faithful presence, worship, and service. Within my theological circles, this is often referred to as "two-kingdom" theology.

This leaves another conviction about the kingdom of God that has been in and out of historical favor - namely, that while the fullness of the kingdom is restricted to the future return of Christ, that His reign and rule are realities that are slowly becoming expressed through the institutions of this world and are not restricted to the church. The advance of the kingdom through the various spheres of human interaction is imperfect, for sure, but truly present and progressing. The civil sphere will never be the reason or lone expression for the kingdom of God working among us. It will simply be one of many manifestations of a world that is being transformed by the people of God as the Gospel of God reconciles all things to Himself. Christian people inhabiting roles of leadership and advocating for Christian principles are the salt, light, and leaven of the kingdom.

A Personal Take

Of course, the final paragraph is where my convictions land. I do not believe the kingdom of God is strictly in the future, nor do I believe it is exclusively restricted to the church. Rather, I believe Christ's kingdom reign is pervasive and growing as more and more people come to the faith. As others have said, "All of Christ for all of life."

And so do I hope for CN? Well, not exactly. I'm hoping for a reboot and a rebranding towards "Disciple States." The mechanisms would not be by force, but by persuasion and conviction. I hope and pray for people to become Christians. And I pray for them to transform whatever stations of life they find themselves in - which simply aims to love God and neighbor. Schools, hospitals, businesses, families, governments - they are all part of the fabric of our shared and redeemed humanity. I don't pray for a formal theocracy. I don't want the powers of sword and keys conflated. I want to see Christ's Great Commission carried forward - teaching nations right from wrong. Helping them help humans flourish under Christ's light yoke.

We are truly blessed to live in the most interesting of times. May God bless us - and may the nations come to know their one true King. And FWIW, according to the Bible, Jesus loves a good breakfast.

**

Scripture References

1. Romans 13:1-7 – The role of the state as bearing the "sword" for justice and order, established by God to govern society.

2. Matthew 16:19 – The church’s authority of the "keys" to bind and loose, representing its spiritual role in proclaiming the Gospel and exercising discipline.

3. Matthew 28:18-20 – The Great Commission, where Jesus commands His followers to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey His commands, supporting the idea of a "Disciple State."

4. 1 Peter 2:13-17 – Submission to governing authorities while living as free people, honoring God and respecting human institutions.

5. John 18:36 – Jesus’ statement that His kingdom is not of this world, emphasizing the spiritual nature of the church’s mission distinct from worldly power.

6. Acts 5:29 – Peter’s declaration to obey God rather than men, illustrating the church’s role as the conscience of the state when human authority conflicts with God’s.

7. Colossians 1:16-20 – Christ’s supremacy over all creation and His work to reconcile all things, supporting the idea of the kingdom’s influence extending beyond the church.

8. Revelation 11:15 – The declaration that the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, reflecting the "already and not yet" nature of God’s kingdom.