Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

Since the Bible as a whole is a civics textbook affirming anarchist political science from front to back, where men seek God’s Kingdom and Kingship at the exclusion of all other kingdoms of the world, it is necessary for those who seek to make a case for worldly statism as something compatible with God’s vision for society to scrounge a few verses that they think can be used to defend their unbiblical ideology of reforming the kingdoms of the world that are abolished in the Kingdom of God.

One of these corruptions of scripture and common sense that is relevant here is to pitch the “King of Kings” concept as being one of a hierarchy of kings where the Lord is the top-king among other, still-legitimate earthly kings who are subordinate to His head position, rather than something that expresses a mutually exclusive concept of competition and rivalry. This is a curious position to take. Why would the Lord, as a King, need other middle-men—the human kings and presidents of human governments—to rule as His earthly representatives? The Bible, in many places, speaks of God’s ability to work without using men such as these to accomplish His ends. Moreover, it speaks of setting up human kings as rebellion against God (1 Samuel 8). Why should individuals need human kings to tell them how to do right? Wasn’t it God’s original plan to have Israel be led directly by Him? And was not seeking human kings the definitive moment where they failed to be led by God as their sole King who ruled them directly? Why would Christ-following men need human kings, too? Does not God speak of operating by writing His Law on the hearts of believers who walk in His ways without the need for rulers to force them to obey (Ezek 36:26)? Why would a God who rules through believers by transforming them internally also need to place human rulers over them? Are not those who are in Christ a new creation (2 Cor 5:17)?

This is all relevant to the points I want to address here, where so-called “Christian” nationalists present this mythical “Christian” political order as being one where human civil government—an inherently ungodly institution that is antithetical to God’s Kingdom government—is maintained but its members are (supposedly) in line with God and keeping His commands. Rather than present a Biblical worldview where human civil government is abolished and people seek the Kingdom of God in its place, they hold to a vision where Babylons are kept but (supposedly) “Christianized.”

How can “Christian” nationalists justify this worldly political mission? They operate in a false dichotomy where human civil government is either “pagan” or Christian,” rather than the true Biblical dichotomy where you have (1) inherently ungodly human civil government on one hand and (2) the Kingdom of God that is entirely distinct and separate from the world, ie., from its political systems. (Lest the CNs accuse of a heavenly-minded escapism, which works to empower their worldly agenda as the alleged answer to those who forsake any earthly responsibilities altogether, by “world” we mean institutions such as the State, not some sort of escapist conception of “not of this earth,” which is indeed a problem among many Christians today). Out of this false dichotomy where the only problem is whether or not human government is “pagan” or “Christian” and not whether or not or not it exists at all, CNs are able to think the main goal of the Christian is to make worldly governments Christian, rather than to further the Kingdom of God at their exclusion. Rather than build apart from these Roman systems and seek another Kingdom altogether, their idea is for Christians to take dominion even over the realm of human government, eg., by voting false gods into office and running for political office themselves, which they imagine will magically repair all that even they see is wrong and socialist about human government but which they deny is necessary to these institutions.

In this article, which won’t be a deep dive on refuting all their prooftexts, I want to focus on a couple of verses of Scripture that are frequently used to justify this statist worldview and worldly ambition of theirs. At least two verses or concepts that “Christian” nationalists have turned to in order to simple-mindedly make a case for their idea of Christianizing worldly kingdoms by voting “good men” into office is (1) the Great Commission and (2) the relatively popular verse that “blessed is a nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 33:12). I will here avoid a few others they often employ to make a case for taking dominion over human civil government, like the Dominion Mandate itself, the call to be salt and light in the world, and the typical citation of Romans 13 as some alleged model for a human civil government that acts “Godly.” 

Nations as people-groups

The basic idea of “Christian” Nationalism, as unchristian and hard to comprehend as it should be understood, is clear enough: they seek to make human government act “Christian” and “conform to Christ.” In their idea of making all things captive to Christ, they extend their supposed Christianity to the realm of worldly governments, which they think should be made to serve the Lord. (We’ll ignore here that they already do act as “servants” of God by bringing judgment upon people who believe in human government and outsource their godly responsibilities to serve their neighbors and administer justice to human rulers). 

Christian nationalists often like to dodge any solid definition as a way of avoiding anyone pinning them down. Though they are not ashamed to admit their agenda is a statist one and fiercely come out against anarchism, they also like to deceitfully use “nations” to seamlessly make a case that the Bible is calling for us to operate through the State because the term “nations” was used, while responding to their critics that “you can’t refute something [CN] that you can’t define.” They are clearly statists, but by keeping things vague enough they are often able to avoid dealing with this charge directly. Most of the time you will see them say things like “this is a Christian nation” or “we need a Christian nation” when what they really mean to suggest is that they believe States are or can be Christian — a claim they subconsciously know would be harder to deal with. 

To use the word “nation” to semi-conceal that they really mean “State” is a tactic similar to one used by the Marxists in the 19th-century to avoid the same charges that their agenda was a statist one. The communists had called for a “social ownership” of “the means of production” by “society” to minimize their true intentions of using state violence to obtain this goal. The twentieth century Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises, explains in his 1920s book Socialism how the Marxists would employ a similar deceit as the Christian nationalists do when they use the word “nation” to mean their necessarily political agenda. Mises writes,

“Modern socialists, especially those of the Marxian persuasion, lay great emphasis on designating the socialist community as Society, and therefore on describing the transfer of the means of production to the control of the community as the ‘Socialization of the means of production.’ In itself the expression is unobjectionable but in the connection in which it is used it is particularly designed to obscure one of the most important problems of Socialism. The word ‘society,’ with its corresponding adjective ‘social,’ has three separate meanings. It implies, first, the abstract idea of social interrelationships, and secondly, the concrete conception of a union of the individuals themselves. Between these two sharply different meanings, a third has been interposed in ordinary speech: the abstract society is conceived as personified in such expressions as ‘human society,’ ‘civil society.’

Now Marx uses the term with all these meanings. This would not matter as long as he made the distinction quite clear. But he does just the opposite. He interchanges them with a conjurer’s skill whenever it appears to suit him. When he talks of the social character of capitalistic production he is using social in its abstract sense. When he speaks of the society which suffers during crises he means the personified society of mankind. But when he speaks of the society which is to expropriate the expropriators and socialize the means of production he means an actual social union. And all the meanings are interchanged in the links of his argument whenever he has to prove the unprovable. The reason for all this is in order to avoid using the term State or its equivalent, since this word has an unpleasant sound to all those lovers of freedom and democracy, whose support the Marxian does not wish to alienate at the outset. A programme which would give the State the general responsibility and direction of all production has no prospect of acceptance in these circles. It follows that the Marxist must continually find a phraseology which disguises the essence of the programme, which succeeds in concealing the unbridgeable abyss dividing democracy and Socialism.”

Likewise, with a conjurer’s skill, “Christian” nationalists often call their absurd idea of a “Christian State” a “Christian nation.” They take the very unobjectionable idea of a Christian people, and make the case for a “Christian” statist society. They use the Biblical calls of evangelizing a people-group or the promises of blessings upon a people-group who make the Lord their God to mean taking over the political apparatus and making such entities as the “United States” into “Christian” institutions. Since it would be harder to sell people on the clear language of a “Christian State,” they use the word “nation” to mean “State” and hope that others accept it. This is their means of concealing the unbridgeable gap between dividing God’s Kingdom and the kingdoms of the world. 

Just as “Christian” Nationalists are deceitful about the definition of their ultimately worldly ideology, so they deceitfully use the word “nation” to justify or hide their statism. This is deceitful because if they outright made it clear that they meant “State,” they could be more easily exposed in front of others. So they say they want a “Christian nation” and try to keep this vague. This is confusing for one main reason: there is nothing objectionable about the idea of a people-group turning Christian, but there is everything wrong and impossible about the idea of making human government “godly.” The Christian nationalist use of “nation” to mean “state” is thus much like how the Marxists used “society” to mean the same thing, loosely concealing that their idea is a worldly-political one. 

As Mises went on: 

“The modern doctrine of the state understands by the word ‘State’ an authoritative unit, an apparatus of compulsion characterized not by its aims but by its form. But Marxism has arbitrarily limited the meaning of the word State, so that it does not include the Socialistic State. Only those states and forms of state organization are called the State which arouse the dislike of the socialist writers. For the future organization to which they aspire the term is rejected indignantly as dishonourable and degrading. It is called ‘Society.’ In this way the Marxian social democracy could at one and the same time contemplate the destruction of the existing State machine, fiercely combat all anarchistic movements, and pursue a policy which led directly to an all powerful state.

Likewise, the “Christian nationalist” idea has arbitrarily limited the problem of a state to the “pagan state,” which they say would be cured by making it a “Christian” one. They only object to human civil government when it is “run by non-Christians.” It is only when non-Christians run these systems (nevermind that all statists are non-Christians) that they call this system a “socialist,” “liberal,” “secular,” or “atheist” one and take a slight issue with it. But they do not oppose this worldly form of government on principle or as such; their goal is to keep it, take dominion over it, and supposedly make it a “Christian” institution again.

Out of such small scriptures that refer to “nations” that we are to preach to (Matt 28) or “nations” that are to make the Lord their God (Psa 33), Christian nationalists work to build up a whole edifice that defends their statist worldview. Their idea is one of reforming human civil government and making this inherently ungodly institution “Christian” — a futile endeavor at best and an evil and idolatrous one at worst.

A “Christian nation”? 

Though it is common in our language today for people to use the term “nation” interchangeably with the word “State,” as in the political entity that rules over a people, we cannot be so loose when it comes to its use in Scripture; need to know exactly what it is that God means when He says to “disciple the nations” or that “nations” are blessed who make the Lord their God; we cannot just draw some statist assumption from such counsel or commission. 

As we have already pointed out, Christian nationalists will often employ the language of “nation” to conceal what they really mean: the idea of a Christian State or “country.” This makes it easier to sell to people who would struggle to come up with any objection to people-group becoming Christian. We should always seek to evangelize the people to the Christian cause. However, a people truly converted to the Christian cause, who are seeking another Kingdom, are a people who have abandoned the cause of man’s kingdoms and are actively working to make them obsolete and abolished by taking up the cause of protecting and serving their neighbors on their own, rather than to pass this Christian duty off to police or legislators. 

In less deceitful terms though, what about the idea of a “Christian country”? It is certainly the most antithetical thing possible to the Kingdom of God, which is a literal Kingdom that is altogether separate from the political systems that Christian nationalists believe should be invaded and reformed with “Christian” men. The “United States,” like all other political systems, is a man-made kingdom of the world that, despite heavy propaganda otherwise, is no exception to the rest of the other kingdoms of the world that are likewise set up by sinners who are in rebellion to God. It is probably owing to the insane amount of statist propaganda in the United States that the idea of “Christian nationalism” is mostly an idea popular among Americans, who, under the delusion that “our country was founded by Christians,” believe they are just returning to something with historical precedent rather than just making up some new idea. No wonder they are also identifying as “Heritage Americans” today, too.

There is no use however in doing some sort of historical investigation to know if political institutions such as the “United States” were “founded by Christians,” even though any basic look at its history would find nothing but a bunch of pagan and Roman symbolism, a law system that has been modeled on Babylon, Egypt, and Rome, and presidents who are treated and painted and sculpted as pagan gods. The antichrist nature of all human government can be known merely by knowing the Lord and His word. We need not look back to see if professing Christians started the United States. We know that Christians don’t seek worldly governments. We know, without any need for historical investigation, that the entity called the “United States” was not “formed by Christians.” This is because Christians do not set up worldly governments; they seek the Kingdom of God at their exclusion. We know a priori that there are no human governments in the world then that had “Christian” origins. Rather, all of them come from the same line of ungodly men who have been following in the same footsteps as Cain and Nimrod from the earliest days of creation, eg., the Babylonians, Egyptians, Romans, etc., all who have set up political systems in their attempt to raise up false gods. As David Lipscomb noted in his brief survey of the lineage of these systems, 

“All the human governments of earth are the broken fragments—or the offshoot of these—of the Roman Empire. We emphasize this line of descent of the human and civil governments of the Earth because it is usually claimed that the civil governments of this day are successors and offshoots of the Mosaic dispensation, or of the government God ordained among the Jews. They clear clearly run back through the Roman, the Grecian, the Medo-Persian, the Babylonian, and for its origin of Babel of Nimrod on the plains of Shinar. The connecting links are few and there can be no doubt as to the line of succession” (David Lipscomb, On Civil Government, p. 15). 

I do not, however, aim here to discuss the origins of the “United States,” which Americans today somehow believe is an exception to this rule. Suffice it to say that it should be evident that with all the portraits and statutes of “founding fathers” and all the Roman columns and obelisks and stone carvings on the side of mountains that these are just more false gods and false heroes of the political pantheon of worldly kings. The United States is a pagan kingdom of the world, as are all the other kingdoms that sinful men have set up and supported. It isn’t as if this one suddenly was blessed by God, but not the others. All human government exists in rebellion to God, not conformity to His law. 

Psalm 33:12

Let us analyze one of these popular prooftexts that non-Christian nationalists (a better description of them) provide to make their case for the existence and reformation of human civil government—an inherently evil institution of the world in the Christian Anarchist view—into an institution that serves Christ. This is Psalm 33:12: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” This verse is frequently invoked by statists to suggest “the American nation” has favor with God, even though this is just another Egyptian system at enmity with the Lord and which invites judgment upon these people who believe this. The line of this Psalm has been a common one for statists to paste on images of an American flag to attempt to make a case for it applying to their political structures today. 

As always, they simply impose their own worldview—conquering man-made kingdoms of the world—on Scripture. Since they are statists who are minded only in the kingdoms of man’s creation, they just simply assume that this must mean “make your State a ‘Christian’ one and God will bless you.” The idea of the State as a false god that precisely means a people have not made the Lord their God is completely out of their minds. They just simplemindedly present a case for their worldview, which if drawn from the whole of Scripture wouldn’t be possible. Because the scripture says “nations,” they just assume that this must affirm their statism. 

So what does “nations” mean? The Hebrew word for “nations” is goy (Strong’s H1471). Lexicons define goy as referring to a “nation, people, or Gentile,” with strong connotations toward an ethnic or cultural group, not the modern nation-state as these people take God’s word to be saying today when calling us to Great Commissions or to make the Lord our God. For a “nation” to make the Lord their God is thus for a people to make the Lord their God, as Israel was supposed to do before they sought human kings, which God specifically mentioned was going after other gods than Him (Samuel 8:8). It is not possible then that a people who have made men into kings and presidents, as Christian nationalists see no problem with, are a people who can make the Lord their God while keeping this political arrangement. This is precisely a nation who makes men their gods. The issue is not electing “Christian” men to office, but raising up human rulers, period. 

Even if we took “nation” to mean something more of a certain people living in certain borders with shared customs and culture that extends into the socio-political range, as scripture may sometimes lean toward (Isa 14:12), even then this provides us no defense for the idea of keeping Babylonian systems but placing “Christians” in charge of them. Even if we want to loosely use the term “American” today to refer to the people living within the present political borders of the entity called the “United States,” the means of making the Lord our God would still be to repent from statism, from all allegiance to worldly governments such as the “United States” and begin to serve the Lord alone. It would mean to seek to live under another Kingdom, with Jesus as the head, and not just a rebranding of the current system by simply having these man-made kingdoms and take the Lord’s name in vain. 

As much as we may still object to identifying as “Americans,” this however is still more faithful to the term “nations” than the way that Christian nationalists attempt to use it to defend the idea of turning worldly governments (eg., the “United States) “Christian.” The Hebrew sense that it is used in the Old Testament more so emphasizes a collective identity based on kinship or shared culture than it does the “nation state” as we understand it today. 

As we see, this citation of Psalm 33:12 doesn’t simply make a case for keeping the “United States” and working to “Christianize” it as the Biblical requirement for receiving God’s blessings. Far from it. The “United States” is a pagan kingdom of the world that is inviting God’s judgment upon this people, and not because Christians aren’t steering the wheel as the CNs think is the solution to all the curses that have come upon us, but because it is an institution contrary to God’s will that exists at all. Those who support the “United States” are precisely a people who do not trust in God and have set up other gods, so long as they keep these systems and work through them. 

The sense in which “nations” is used here is about Israel being blessed with divine protection for trusting in God alone, which is necessarily an anarchist social order as far as human rulers are concerned, not by setting up a human government and state military that merely proclaims the Lord as their King with their lips. The verse of this Psalm is precisely about trusting in God rather than men, which men fail to do when they trust in human rulers instead. This is the nature of the whole Bible: trusting in God rather than men. For men to come along today and say “look, God said blessed is the nation that serves Him” and treat this as a case for attempting to fold the godly into the human government, rather than abolishing it, is no case for mixing the two kingdoms.

Only anarchists make the Lord their God

Indeed, the verse of this Psalm is precisely distinguishing a “nation” (a people) who serve God from the people of the world who serve false gods and idols, as all statists do. It distinguishes a people (a “nation”) who trust in the Lord to protect them and are thus under His protection, from a people like Christian nationalists who seek protection in worldly kingdoms, presidents, legislators, judges, defense departments, federal agents, soldiers, and law enforcement officers. Psalm 33:12 is, therefore, but another theological prooftext for anarchist political science, not Christian nationalism. It is but another scripture that affirms the characteristic mark of a Christian is that they trust in God rather than men and their governments. The problem here is just how simpleminded Christian nationalists are. They take no care whatsoever to know what it means to know and serve the Lord; the use of the word “nation” is good enough for them to scrounge up for their weak case of making the “United States” a “Christian” government.

This verse that is commonly cited by Christian nationalists thus proves the opposite of what they attempt to show. It shows that blessings come to those who trust in the Lord, and that those who trust in human government are people who have no faith in the Lord at all. A statist society is precisely a people whose god is men. Christian nationalists and other statist idolaters are the very people this verse is directed against. They are a people who have failed to make the Lord their God, just as the people Israel had done when they set up human kings in rebellion to God. They are a people who set up human kings, state judges, and legislative lawmakers in the place of God who is all these things (Isa 33:22). The verse explains, conversely, that cursed are a people like Christian nationalists who make men their presidents and congressmen. It should serve as a lesson against Christian nationalism, not one of their prooftexts. 

Only an anarchist society, which is absent a system of human civil government, is a nation of people whose God is the Lord. A people—this is the better definition of “nation”—whose God is the Lord is a people who do not have human governors and state armies. A people who do have these men are a people who have made other gods for themselves, against the command to have no other gods and against the promises of blessings to a people who make the Lord their God.

Those who trust in presidents, congressmen, soldiers, law enforcement officers, and federal agents like immigration agents, are people who do not trust in the Lord to keep their enemies away and protect and provide for them providentially. They are precisely the opposite people of who this verse says God blesses. This idea of blessings coming upon those who trust in the Lord, as opposed to trusting in Pharaohs and their armies as Christian nationalists do, is a theme that runs through all of Scripture. In fact, we don’t even need to leave this Psalm they cite to show that God’s word always speaks against trusting in militaries and their soldiers. “A horse is a vain hope for salvation; even its great strength cannot save” (Psalm 33:17).

A “nation” of people whose God is the Lord are a group of people who precisely reject the statism of Christian nationalists and other people who call for militaries, police, and legislatures to accomplish their ends. A nation of people whose God is the Lord are a people who instead trust in God alone, which means a Godarchist society where God is the only legitimate ruler and human rulers are non-existent (at least over this repentant people who are seeking God’s Kingdom). It is only Christian Anarchists who know what it means to make the Lord our God, which sets us apart from Christian nationalists who only know what it means to take His name in vain: “Some trust in chariots and others in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God” (Psalm 20:7). Christian nationalists reverse all the truths of scripture in practice. Their claims would be, “Some trust in a stateless society under God’s providential protection, but we trust in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security, Congress, Courthouses, law enforcement officers, and the military.” They’re enemies of God and His word. They’re Egyptians, not Christians. 

Christian nationalists cannot actually live up to scriptures like Psalm 33 that they cite as a prooftext for their statist cause. They do not actually know how to make the Lord their God, because they do not reject worldly governments that are precisely making men into gods. The Christian nationalist idea is employing soldiers, police, and federal agents to create their idealized “Christian” society where immigrants are rounded up, “God’s laws” are enforced with the sword of the State, and the military is used to crush any foreign enemies. But God doesn’t call us to have presidents and armies and to save us from our enemies, and He doesn’t need to use them himself to accomplish His providential protection over those who trust in God rather than men. He does so on His own. Speaking of Judah, He says, “I will save them—not by bow or sword or war, not by horses and cavalry, but by the LORD their God” (Hosea 1:7). 

The Great Commission

Another “prooftext” cited by “Christian” nationalists to make a case that our main “Christian” agenda is to be invading the power centers of worldly kingdoms and making human rulers conform to Christ and uphold God’s law (as opposed to repent, resign, and seek His Kingdom outside of these institutions) is the Great Commission given to us by Christ toward the end of the Gospels (Matt 28:19). 

Since we are all a little more familiar with Greek words than Hebrew, it should be even more clear than the case with Psalm 33:12 that this word “nations” in the New Testament is not speaking of the absurd and unchristian idea of Christianizing human government. The Greek word for “nations” here is ethnos (Strong’s G1484), again meaning “nation, people, race, or Gentiles.” Something more like an “ethnic” group thus rightly comes to mind when we hear the word “ethnos,” not “the American nation,” as in the “United States government.” 

Discipling the “nations” thus means something more like “evangelize the various ethnic and cultural groups across the earth.” It is not some simple case for “Christianizing the worldly governments across the earth” that CNs believe they have discovered here. It is speaking of non-Christians or pagans as collective entities in need of coming to God, not political entities. 

Nevertheless, Christian nationalists regularly see the Great Commission as the Lord giving words directly for their agenda. In one statement of principles by Christian nationalists, they make it clear that their idea of the Great Commission includes attempting to make human civil government “Christian.” 

“We affirm that Christ’s commissioning of His Church to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, and teaching them to obey all that He has commanded includes civil authorities who are to be called to repentance, faith, and obedience to Christ. We affirm that the Church is to instruct civil authorities regarding their identity and duties as servants before the throne of Christ. We affirm that this duty is a Great Commission issue.”

We cannot deny that we should bring the Gospel to human rulers. But this message that we take to the rulers is decidedly one of “let my people go,” not “call yourselves Christians (ie., take the Lord’s name in vain) as you rule over us.” What we see is that these types of people are mostly just content to have regular old statists just profess the Lord’s name. Thus, if the Vice President or “Secretary of War” merely say they are Christians or make some vain allusion to theological ideas, the Christian nationalists rejoice whether or not these men are actually Christians or not in their actions — and how could a War Secretary or anyone who exercises authority over other men possibly be a Christ follower?

What we see here is that the statist mission of Christian nationalists is entirely superficial, even if we ignore how illegitimate it is in the first place. Christian nationalists don’t actually want “Christian rulers,” even though there is no such thing anyway, given that true Christians are servants who voluntarily administer God’s Kingdom through freewill offerings rather than taxation and man-made legalism. All they want is for ungodly men to take the Lord’s name in vain and merely profess to be Christians as they continue to rule over other men, contrary to Christ’s commands (Mark 10:42-45). Hence, as members of the Trump administration began to use more Christian language recently, the Christian nationalists started saying “this is Christian nationalism” and “America is back.” They don’t actually want to call these men to repent, but are satisfied when they merely speak the Lord’s name, despite Scripture warning us that this is no proof that a man is in Christ and is most of the time just proof that they are false prophets.

To call civil authorities to repent—to take this task of the Great Commission to them—means to call for their resignation, not their continuation in office as supposedly “reformed” men who are going to act as Christians all of the sudden. To teach them to obey all the Lord has commanded is to call them to stop ruling over other men and stop coveting their neighbors’ property as they must do to accept a paycheck from the government. To repent yourself is to stop raising up these false gods and supporting systems of human government that are based on theft (taxation) and murder (war). Repentance means to turn another way, ie., back to the ways of God’s Kingdom that are based on freewill offerings to voluntary servant-ministers  rather than compulsory offerings to “congressional representatives.” So long as men serve and support human government, they are not repentant men, and they are still in need of the evangelizing of the Great Commission that they kid themselves they are carrying out. 

Yet the Christian nationalists have not learned any of these things. They would get a smile from ear to ear if a tyrant merely said “Jesus is Lord” right before he phoned in a drone strike. They do not actually care if one really means it when they say these things, which, if they did, they would not believe in human government, much less serve in this kingdom. Those who confess that Jesus is Lord, which is one of the prooftexts (Phil 2:9-11) cited in their statement of principles above to affirm the idea of getting human rulers to obey God, is to repent of calling men lords and saviors. Lord and savior are political terms that exclude the idea of Caesar as lord and savior, which the Caesars of Rome had adopted before. Such prooftexts as these, again, only affirm Christian Anarchism, which is the only society where men no longer regard men as their lords, saviors, kings, and rulers. 

Far from being men who are carrying out the Great Commission by working through the politics of worldly kingdoms, Christian nationalists are people who are still in need of the evangelism of this commission, because they are people who evidently do not know the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which points men to salvation through another Kingdom entirely apart from the Roman systems of the world that they believe can be made Christian — a fallacy that that has been aided in large part by the ancient Roman system itself, when Constantine’s false conversion made it seem possible for Christ and Rome to be blended together. 

The “nation” in context 

Though all scripture is profitable for reproof and generally applicable to people in all ages, it is still always necessary to bring it into context, as much as some stand-alone verses can be edifying and as much as scripture is just as applicable to us as these words were for the current audiences of the time (I do not argue Psalm 33 is no longer relevant, but that Christian nationalists misuse it).

In this instance, it is appropriate to point out that Psalm 33, which Christian nationalists try to adopt for their modern idea of Christianizing worldly governments, doesn’t work even if that was a legitimate Christian goal to seek the kingdoms of man rather than the Kingdom of God. Besides the call of the Psalmist here being one that is precisely concerned with trusting in God rather than men, the context here is to the people called “Israel” in the Bible as a faithful covenant community, not a guide for worldly governments. This is also the context given by traditional commentaries. This does not mean that it was a promise of blessings given to Israel only. The point is that we know what their relationship was to God as a covenant people who should keep the Lord as their only King. For this context, it is inappropriate to apply this to the “United States” today, not because God doesn’t bless faithful servants anymore, but because the “United States” is not a “nation” in the sense the text meant here. If we take a proper understanding of the term nation here, which again refers to a faithful people-group, we see that it is not a call to Christianize worldly kingdoms, to impose Christianity via state power, or to keep these institutions and have them merely write “Christ is King” on their buildings. 

Christian nations have therefore not understood the Great Commission or this Psalm, because they have simply used “nation” to mean “state” and took no issue with it. They are essentially just trying to smuggle in a statist agenda under the term “nation,” to use “nations” in a way that Scripture doesn’t, and to hope no one notices. To disciple all nations/peoples means the various and diverse people groups of the world who are not yet regenerated people who are seeking another Kingdom where Jesus Christ is the sole King. It is about evangelizing individual non-believers into seeking the Kingdom of God, not seeking to transform the government of the devil into a “godly” form. To make the Great Commission about conquering and reforming worldly kingdoms, as opposed to a focus on voluntary and personal discipleship, is a corruption of the teaching. For Christian nationalists to have perverted the Great Commission into a case for operating through the kingdoms of the world that are of the devil is just plainly corrupted and evil. The Great Commission is about personal evangelism and discipleship among all the people of the earth and the various ethnic groups, not “Christianizing” worldly empires and attempting to make modern-day Babylons into God-serving institutions. Indeed, the “Christian” nationalist idea is very much opposed to the Great Commission. Whereas Jesus, in the beginning of this commission, sent His apostles to make disciples via teaching others, the Christian nationalist idea is to employ state violence to make a “Christian nation.” These people aren’t Christians. There is only non-statist Christianity or non-Christian statism, and they choose the latter. 

Blessed are the statists? 

The only way Psalm 33:12 could be perverted into a case for “Christian” statism (contradiction) is if the Lord actually blesses statism. But this is not what we learn in the Sermon on the Mount, which serves as the main teaching of the Christian faith. It is the meek that inherit the earth; Christian nationalists are people who will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Their vision of the Great Commission as a worldly-political effort is contrary to the Bible and to the common sense of God’s Kingdom. The vision of the prophets as all nations streaming to Zion one day (Isa 2:2 or Micah 4) should not bring to mind worldly governments suddenly turning “Christian” and following the Lord, but rather the people of the world coming to know the Lord, which would mean the end of human government. In every way, nationalists who claim to be Christian are out of step with Jesus’s sermon on the mountain. They are not people who are poor in spirit, but are prideful men who seek to conquer worldly kingdoms. They are not people who mourn at what we have gotten ourselves into, but people who think voting and legislation can change it. They are not people who thirst for righteousness, but self-righteous people who want to use man made legal systems to further their agenda. They are not pure in heart, but have a wicked heart that wants to use state violence to remove immigrants or further their other political goals. They are not peacemakers, but men who call for police to ramp up their enforcement of man-made legalism. They are not persecuted for their righteousness, but men who want to do the persecuting against others. 

Far from receiving blessings for pursuing the statist agenda of Christianizing worldly governments, the lesson of Scripture is just the opposite: these systems are a curse upon a people, because a statist people are a people who have made men their gods, rather than make the Lord their God. It doesn’t make one bit of difference if these men take the Lord’s name in vain. These systems work to bring evils and injustices upon people as a judgment for the sin of outsourcing it to human rulers, contrary Christian nationalists think is the purpose of these institutions. The Christian nationalist often cannot deny that the system is corrupt today (though they are often happy with things just the way they are under the current administration). Their issue is that they believe it could be any different. Though they might concede human government is dealing injustices today, which does not surprise the Christian anarchist who sees these systems as functioning exactly as God warned they would, they think it can be brought back into line with God with enough “Christians” voting and running for office.

As we see, for Christian nationalist to cite Psalm 33:12 in defense of their statist agenda shows just how much they have confused this whole idea of blessings coming to the “nation” who serves God, perverting it into thinking that blessings come upon worldly governments that merely and blasphemously profess the Lord’s name but continue to do oppose as He has commanded. For this, they are in the position of all statists: under judgment for not knowing the ways of the Lord. Against them, it would be more appropriate to say, cursed are a people who confuse the Roman eagle for the dove, the beast for lamb, the government of God for the government of the devil. Though they say they seek a Christian society, they simply seek to make the current worldly systems of government more “Christian” on the surface, but not in reality. If they truly sought a Christian society, they would work to dismantle these worldly governments that Christ said His Kingdom was not. Instead, they just want to vote new false gods into office and believe that human lawmakers can be turned into God-obeying men, even though this is evidently far from the case. 

The Lord’s Prayer

Another similar corruption of Scripture that CNs employ to justify their idea of working through the political means of worldly kingdoms is to draw from Jesus telling us to pray “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as in heaven.” This is indeed a good argument against the heavenly-minded escapism of the majority of Christians who refuse to seek God’s Kingdom at all. However, it does not follow that this means to seek God’s Kingdom through the political means of the world. “On earth” does not mean “via politics.” Politics does not exhaust the means of being active on earth, and is necessarily contrary to the Kingdom activism we must be doing. The Kingdom of God is an earthly one. However, it is not furthered through worldly (ie., political) means, which is precisely the way of thwarting it and working against it.

All the CNs are doing here is jumping from one error (heavenly-minded escapism) to another (worldly-minded activism). Out of their rightful rejection of those who forsake all earthly duty, they dive right into the sin of operating through worldly kingdoms. But this was actually the lesson of Jesus when He said His Kingdom is not of this world. It indeed didn’t mean that it was “not of this earth,” as the escapists think. But it also meant precisely that it was not of this world and its systems and human government, that there was no possible synthesis between Christ and Rome. 

While the Christian nationalists are partially right to have the idea of Christianizing society, they mistakenly include conquering civil government into this plan, rather than abolishing it and seeking another Kingdom, which makes their activism even worse, because we are not in need of action per se but action toward the right ends. They have perverted the Dominion Mandate into what has been called Dominionism, where statist pursuits are made a part of God’s plan for men and their societies.

But the Dominion Mandate does not apply to conquering human government. God gave dominion to men over the earth, not over other men. Jesus was not instructing men to take dominion over “society” by taking over its political institutions and controlling them. In fact, the Dominion Mandate involves the abolition of human government. The 19th century French political economist, Frederic Bastiat, knew that this dominion was not a political one where man was given dominion over other men. 

“God decreed that man should wage war only against Nature, peacefully, and should reap directly from her the fruits of victory. When he gains dominion over Nature only through the indirect means of dominion over his fellow men, his mission has been perverted; he has turned his faculties in a wrong direction” (Bastiat, Economic Harmonies).

The dominion that God gave to man (Gen 1:28) was over the earth, not one of political domination. To take “on earth as in heaven” to mean operating through the satanic kingdoms of the world is an utter perversion of the work that Jesus has called us to do: of furthering a Kingdom that is not advanced through worldly-political means and that is wholly different from these institutions. 

Christian Nationalism’s weak opposition

So why is it that Christian nationalism is gaining in appeal? One reason is that many operate in a false dichotomy of seeing human civil government as either “secular” or “Christian,” when both these things are contradictory. Statism is a religion on its own, which means it’s neither “secular” or “Christian,” which in turn means that those Christians who say they reject nationalism because they want a “separation of church and state” are just as confused as those who think it should or can be Christianized. The true political dichotomy is the Kingdom of God vs. the worldly kingdoms of man, not a human government that is either “Christian” or not. In other words, our choices are between two entirely different kingdoms, not between which way the kingdom of the world is branded.  

Another reason Christian nationalism continues to gain sway over people is then that its challengers have largely been statists themselves rather than anarchists, who are the only people capable of providing an alternative dichotomy to those who, in the false dichotomy, think the obvious choice is to bring Christ into worldly governments. (Anti-Christians have also come out against it but have not embraced the truth themselves). That most of the people who object to the Christian nationalists are statists themselves then only works to empower the Christian nationalists by leaving them without any real opposition by anarchists who known their world political ambitions are idolatrous and evil. That the most popular objections to the Christian nationalists are by statists rather than anarchists just allows the “Christian” nationalists to present the Christianization of government as the “obvious” Christian choice. Most of these opponents, who are often “progressive” or “socialist” Christians, don’t take objection to the support for human civil government, which they support too. Their only complaint is that they are attempting to Christianize what, in their mind, should remain “secular” in their “separation of church and state” view. They do not argue, we we do, that statism is incompatible with Christianity, period. They still want a human government, just one that is “free from religious control” or doesn’t (vainly) declare itself to be Christian. Even those who can say that Christian nationalism contradicts the Great Commission only really criticize the CN for some sort of overly zealous goal of religious supremacy, while being people who still advocate for voting and political participation themselves and still run for office. These people then don’t even take issue with the main problem of so-called Christian nationalism: statism. Indeed, their idea is “protecting our secular system of government” from people who want to “Christianize” it. They are often concerned with just as many antichrist things as the Christian nationalists they criticize, like preserving “our democracy,” “our government,” or “our constitution,” whereas we Christian Anarchists denounce these things as sin and reject them entirely. 

The only effective means of combating Christian nationalism is to address statism as sin and show that it is incompatible with Christianity entirely. Otherwise, the Christian nationalists are able to maintain their false dichotomy of a “Christian” vs. a “secular” State, where the “obvious” choice in this false dichotomy that excludes the abolition of the States and its replacement by the Kingdom of God appears to be to make it “Christian.” What Christian wouldn’t want to make “our government” Christian in this limited worldview? Why leave your faith at the foot of the bed or in the so-called church, right? But many seeming opponents of Christian nationalists are statists to who only object to the State declaring Christianity as an official religion, or something like that. By keeping this false dichotomy going, Christian nationalists are then able to tell others that it is their duty to seek “Christian rulers” to avoid getting ruled by evil atheistic socialists. They say, “why would you not want Christian rulers if we’re going to have them” or “so you want to be ruled by pagans?” This is their way of conveniently excluding the Christian Anarchist option. Why should we assume that human rulers are inevitable? Why should we raise up rulers at all? Why should we assume that we would be ruled by pagans at all if we actually sought to do right by God? Are not human rulers but a judgment for denying God as our only God? Won’t God providentially protect a people who make Him their God? And why should we think there is any such thing as a “godly ruler”? 

With this weak, statist “opposition” to Christian nationalism, we are left with even more emboldened nationalists who think it’s the “obvious” choice to try and make Babylonian systems “Christian.” Since Christian Anarchists have not been able to be seen as the real opponents of Christian Nationalism who present the only real challenge to this worldly-statist doctrine, the Christian nationalists have been able to abuse their current opponents, who are often socialistic “Christians” who see a “secular” role for government and think that religion is limited to the church or family, claiming that “Christ must be taken into the public square” too, ie., the political institutions of the world. Since their opponents have not been abolitionists who seek another Kingdom outside of worldly kingdoms altogether, but have been people who reduce Christianity to some private bedroom-faith, the Christian nationalists have been able to act like they are the people who are actually carrying out the Great Commission by pursuing this agenda through worldly political means, which in reality is the opposite of what Christ has called us to do. They get to employ verses such as “on earth as in heaven” to make it look like their statism represents a properly activist Christianity, even though it’s antagonistic to the Gospel of God’s Kingdom. As we covered, this is just another corrupt citation by them. To seek the Kingdom of God on earth as in heaven does not mean to work through the political institutions of the world that Jesus said His Kingdom is not. Political activism not only does not exhaust the options for earthly action, but it is contrary to the work we should be doing seeking the Kingdom of God. 

It is true that many Christians are retreatists who make “My Kingdom is not of this world” out to mean not of this earth. Still, this is no excuse for the “Christian” nationalists to make it of this world, ie., the political systems of the earth. They combat the retreatism of others by diving headfirst into the very thing Jesus calls us away from, which is no way to combat heavenly escapism. The word for “world” is kosmos, referring to a system of government. Neither the retreatists nor the Christian nationalists are right to reject earthly Kingdom building or to do it through the political means (respectively). The Kingdom of God is earthly and literal. However, it is not of this world.

Defining Christian Nationalism? 

There have been some attempts to define so-called Christian nationalism and provide a sort of statement of principles of this idea. One can see from talking to them that they are not people who are thinking about the things of Christ and seeking His Kingdom at the exclusion of all others. They are entirely worldly people who seek to reform society through the voting booth and legislature, not people who trust in God to provide for them. They place their identity in worldly kingdoms like the “United States” and count themselves as “Americans,” even though Biblical authors say that “our citizenship is in heaven,” that men must choose this day whom they serve, and that a man cannot serve two masters.

It is not really that important to grapple with a good definition of an idea that is overall foolish and elusive anyway. The Christian nationalist idea is a statist one just as any other statist idea that proposes that worldly kingdoms do their bidding for them, albeit they will claim this one is “Christian” rather than, say, “Marxist.” In their own words, though, their idea is that “civil authorities would acknowledge Christ as King, uphold God’s moral law, and encourage the Christian faith.” This is not possible, though. Anyone who acknowledges Christ as King does not have other kings and certainly does not become one themselves. The idea of “Christ is King,” notwithstanding the abuse of this by Christian nationalists, is an anarchist idea of No King But Christ. It is a term of rivalry, not rank. Furthermore, anyone who obeys God’s Law to have no other gods and not engage in theft, covetousness, and murder, cannot possible support a system of human civil government that is built on those things, but must be an anarchist or rather a Christarchist that sees no other god-kings as legitimate other than Jesus Christ. The question is not whether human government should or shouldn’t obey God’s Law, which is the false dichotomy that helps “Christian” nationalism seem like the obvious choice, but whether or not it’s even possible for them to do so. The answer is clearly not. Such an institution is raised up against God’s Law and cannot possibly go on to obey it, hence why it doesn’t. Christian nationalism is nothing more than the pursuit of a mythical political society where the State comes into line with Christ, when this was never the case in the past or present. It is the pursuit of false professions of faith, not a social order that is actually in keeping with God. 

The Christian nationalist idea is mostly one that is content with getting evil men to profess that they are Christians. They don’t actually seek to abolish these institutions, as true Christians do, but are merely looking to baptize Babylon and claim that it is no longer a whore to power because “the Secretary of War goes to church” or “the Vice President just told the country about the resurrection of Christ.” They think that slapping a cross on the wicked system of human government will somehow transform it into a non-evil, and, of course, even a Christian, institution. For them, you just throw your Jesus fish sticker on a tank as it’s rolling over some children and you’re a “Christian military.” Just put “God bless America” on your bomber as it blows up some villages, and suddenly you’ve become a “Christian country.” They aren’t actually seeking another Kingdom, but only a rebrand of worldly kingdoms, which they then suppose will no longer contain the inherent violence, theft, and idolatry that these worldly systems are all built upon. They are lipstick-on-a-pig people who think that some superficial imagery being pasted over an evil institution will make it non-evil or non-pagan. They are the people from the Bible who wash the outside of the cup only. They are easily fooled by mere professions of faith and vain mentions of the Lord, even though Scripture has more bad things to say about people who claim the Lord than it does good. They are actually stupid enough to think “this is a Christian country” because the plunderers wrote “In God We Trust” on their inflationary paper currency, extortionist courthouses that deal injustices, and predatory police vehicles who act as revenue agents for their worldly masters.

“Christian” nationalists don’t actually care about seeking the Kingdom of God, which is why they seek to reform the kingdoms of man. They are not actually concerned with having a social order that obeys God’s Law. If they were, they wouldn’t set up false gods and human lawmakers who pass their own laws. They are merely interested in making it seem like worldly institutions are suddenly Christian, that human civil government is in line with God’s will so long as there’s a cross symbol on the drone as it strikes a kid in the Middle East or that the man who throws a Mexican kid in a cage “goes to church” on Sunday. 

What they don’t realize is this aesthetic overhaul of worldly governments is even more evil than statists who—consistently and non-hypocritically—make no claim of serving the Lord, because they are people who are taking the Lord’s name in vain. God looks upon the “Christian” nationalist worse than He does the atheistic socialist who doesn’t try to pass their political system off as anything other than a worldly plunder scheme that stands opposed to God. 

At the end of the day, Christian nationalists are the friends of the world who Scripture says are enemies of God. Rather than seek another Kingdom that abolishes the kingdoms of man, they seek to send men into these worldly kingdoms and transform them from the inside. They don’t actually know what it means to be a people whose God is the Lord, or else they would repent from their statism and seek the Kingdom of God.