[This is part 7 in a series on “False Dichotomies in Political Theology.” See part one, two, three, four, five, six, eight, nine]

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris 

In the previous article of this series, we outlined the false division between “politics” and “religion,” a separation that allows many self-professed Christians and atheists to believe they can engage in worldly politics without embracing another religion or contradicting the one they profess to adhere to on the other hand. Today, most Christians think of “religion” only as their beliefs about God, private devotions at home, or the Sunday rituals and ceremonies of their churches. Because they fail to recognize true Christian religion as the non-statist political pursuit of a Kingdom that is not of this world and its politics, people have come to treat worldly politics as a separate realm from religion, which has been reduced to purely “spiritual” concerns, such as “saving souls” in heaven.

In this article, we aim to show how those who have attempted to undivide the false dichotomy of a “political realm” and a “religious realm” by “taking our faith to the public square” have only compounded the error and have ultimately not succeeded in making their religion something more than a mere private matter, but have, like all statists, abandoned it for another. As much as people like “Christian” Nationalists and others who launch themselves into worldly politics think of themselves as people who are doing more for their “religion” than the men of old who thought of it as nothing more than the practices of the man qua spiritual man, these men are only falling into the same false dichotomy that separates politics and religion into distinct realms. If they did not — if they truly recognized that the Christian faith is about the politics of another Kingdom that is not of this world and its political systems — they would not seek to reform the kingdoms of man, but would instead seek the Kingdom of God in exclusion to these false kingdoms of the world. These so-called “Christian” nationalists who advocate worldly political action are all ultimately churchmen, who see the role of “the church” as something separate from the role of “government.” They see “the church,” so-called, as existing only for the “spiritual edification” of a man qua religious man, while turning to human civil government for their law, justice, protection, border security, or many other socialist provision of goods that they do not believe are the role of God’s Kingdom people, or more pertinently in this case, the role of pure religion. To them, “the church” is just where one goes to get their fill of religion and “worship” God through rituals; human civil government is where one must go for the “political things” of life that (supposedly) exist apart from religion. 

The dilution of the term “religion” into mere Sunday rituals has had two sinister effects that work together to achieve the same goal: the “church” or the practice of “religion” has been reduced to mere Sunday singing and sermonizing, and men have turned to the kingdoms of the world—the benign and non-religious “political realm” as they conceive of it—to organize their societies and provide for the many social needs of their people. However, if the role of God’s body politic were understood to be much more than it is conceived today under the dominance of the modern “church” concept where slothful men huddle in a building once a week for sermons, it would never be thought that men should turn to human civil government for their defense, justice, or welfare otherwise; the “church,” or the servant-ministers of God’s Kingdom, would be operating as a non-authoritarian government and providing all these things that men sinfully seek in a State. If the practice of pure religion, i.e., of serving people in a private a decentralized Kingdom-order, were seen as a politics itself, men would never think that they could also hold to a statist politics.

“Religion” is not just about the things a man thinks about God, but the (political) methods one believes in for serving others, which decidedly contrasts the Christian religion against the statist religion. As one article explains,

“Taking care of each other was the purpose of religions, and it was even part of the definition of Religion at one time in history. The Bible defines Pure Religion as the caring for the widows and orphans and needy of society without the aid from or application to the Benefactors of the world and the Fathers of the earth.”

This means that to practice the true or pure religion of Christianity, which is to serve others freely out of the love we have for our neighbors, forbids us from adopting the statist religion of the world, where men are served through the violence of taxation. The statist method of serving others is not just a political one; it is a religious one that stands contrary to the Christian political ideal of a Kingdom that does not operate on such authoritarian means as the kingdoms of men. This means that adopting the politics of statism contradicts one’s claim to Christian religion. Far from engaging in worldly politics being the means of making more out of your Christian religion than the pew-sitters of the previous centuries, such an act is only to likewise forsake the true religion of Christianity.

The error of statist dominionists

However, unlike many other entirely slothful Christians who forsake the Dominion Mandate and Great Commission altogether to sit around and do nothing, these so-called “Christian” nationalists and other statist idolaters like them do have some vague idea of undoing this false dichotomy and making their “religion” into much more than what it is usually conceived as. They do have some realization that religion should be removed from the confines of private devotion where it has wrongly and stagnantly remained. Yet their idea of doing this is by “bringing the Christian faith to the public square,” i.e., taking over the statist systems of the world. They believe that taking your religion seriously means Christianizing the Babylonian kingdoms of the world, as opposed to abolishing them and seeking another Kingdom in their place. They imagine that “the Christian religion,” vaguely understood, should influence the politics of the world, and vice versa, that the kingdoms of the world should be influenced by Christianity and even “that government must promote Christianity as the only true religion.” They do not realize that human civil government cannot “promote Christianity,” whatever that even means, because human government is an alternative religion to the pure religion of Christianity, where men are served in a decentralized, non-statist community without the use of political violence. Human civil government can, at best, only ever take the Lord’s name in vain, because all States are set up in violation of God’s law and can only ever pay lip service to serving the Lord.

In short, these statists are only jumping from one error to the other. Whereas one group of Christians are entirely slothful to seek God’s Kingdom, these statists think they are actually activists for God’s Kingdom and non-apathetic men who are really making something of their religion because they have thrown themselves into the politics of the world.

All this is mistaken. While we should indeed dispense with the false dichotomy that separates politics and religion and should see that “religion” gives men a much higher calling than sitting around and doing nothing more than waiting on the world to end, the only way to truly do this is to show that the Christian religion in practice is the politics of God’s anarchistic Kingdom and that all statist politics is a religion that is contrary to Christ. We do not become people who remove religion from its narrow confines of private devotion by getting involved in the statist political systems of the world, which is only to adopt another religion altogether and abandon the true mission of seeking God’s Kingdom outside of the institutions of both “church” and “state.”

“Religion” as a personal/private matter

When it is thought that “religion” and “politics” are separate things, those who profess to be Christians will usually adopt one of two errors: they will (1) think that they can be religious and apolitical, i.e., consider themselves a Christian without adopting any political implications for this claim, which to them has nothing to do with the politics of another Kingdom; or they will (2) think that they can become statists or socialists without contradicting their “religion” on the other hand, since in their minds “religion” is mostly just one’s “spiritual” beliefs or professions of faith. If “religion” merely regards one’s private beliefs about God and their prayer life qua religious man rather than actually practicing a certain means of taking care of people in a society that amounts to a certain political ethic, then men will reason that it’s acceptable to get their politics from the world and participate in the politics of man’s kingdoms, since “religion” is apparently a separate matter altogether, or at least more so a matter of just claiming you “believe in Jesus” that doesn’t prohibit you from acting a certain way politically.

Those professing “Christian” statists (contradiction) who do get the sense that Christianity is indeed much more than a mere private matter of a man’s prayer life or beliefs about God thus dive into another error, ultimately failing to see that Christianity is about the politics of the Kingdom of God, which is irreconcilable with the politics of the kingdoms of man. Because some men have mistakenly confined their idea of “religion” to their private beliefs about God or their own prayer time inside their house, they go on to argue that it should be carried over to the politics of the world. Thinking that they are men who are trying to remove religion from its wrongful confinement to a man’s mind or the privacy of his home, they unwittingly call for the participating in another religion: the statist political method of organizing society. They suggest that “our faith must be taken to the public square” and that “Christians must vote” or “Christians should run for office.” They effectively jump from rebutting one error (slothfulness to seek God’s Kingdom altogether) by adopting another (evilly and vainly seeking it through the kingdoms of the world). They rightly point out that “religious” men have not cared to see their Christian faith as anything more than a private or personal matter, only to launch into advocating the sin of taking Christianity to “the public square” (i.e., the worldly-political arena). Their criticism only leads them to further sin. That men have failed to form a politics (i.e., a political theory) out of Scripture leads them to suggest that this politics is statist. 

All they have done here is invent another false dichotomy where a man is either (1) a private-personal religious person who doesn’t care about holding a politics at all, such that all anti-statists are assumed to be apathetic men; or where (2) the only people who do (supposedly) care to take their religion seriously must become statists who get involved with the politics of the world. They think that the only effective counter to slothful behavior (waiting on heaven) is supposedly outright idolatry and sin (voting for false gods). They cannot conceive of another path: where men both reject the politics of the world and (non-slothfully) seek the literal Kingdom of God. They have a false way of looking at things where men are either private/religious men or take up the banner of “Christian” nationalism and “take their faith seriously.” That other, indeed-slothful men make the error of thinking Christianity is nothing more than a foot-of-the-bed faith where a man prays and hopes for the heavenly afterlife does not mean that one should jump into the politics and kingdoms of the world when they break out of this. Heavenly-mindedness is not combated with worldly-mindedness.

The religio-political connection 

At the same time, the statists are hitting on something more than the people who think that religion has nothing to do with politics at all, though they are entirely missing the head of the nail each time they swing the hammer. They do see that we are called to much more than hiding out in our homes and thinking of religion merely as one’s beliefs about God that has absolutely nothing to say of their “politics.” However, their statist political conclusions are entirely at odds with the pure religion of Christianity, which indeed provides a politics, but one that calls men to seek another Kingdom altogether. It is not that we are slothful and apathetic men who think that Christianity does not provide politics when we reject the statist politics of the world, but that we are asserting that the politics we must adopt is decidedly anarchist and calls us to build a Kingdom that is not of this world and its politics. 

At the end of the day, as much as those who think we must “take our faith to the public square” kid themselves that they are doing more with the concept of religion by calling for Christians’ involvement in the politics of man’s kingdoms, they are ultimately still not people who are abandoning this false dichotomy of politics and religion, since if they were, they would see that a person ultimately cannot have a separate politics (statism) from their religion, and that one’s politics is definitive of their religion. Statists are not and cannot be Christians, and Christians are not and cannot be statists. To be a Christian means to adopt another political idea about how societies should be organized, which rejects the statist political methods of the world. For the most part, then, the statists of the professing Christian world prefer to confine politics and religion to distinct realms, so that they can practice the false religion of statism without being seen a non-Christians. It has always been convenient for false converts to separate “politics” and “religion” so that they can continue on as worldly statists while they profess to be followers of the Lord in some vague spiritual sense, all while they fail to do as He says in their “political life.”

Unfortunately for those who wish to maintain that one can be a statist while remaining a Christian or an atheist, this arbitrary separation is easily exposed. One’s politics necessarily determines their religion and vice versa, since religion is necessarily the method or Kingdom model one believes in for serving their fellow neighbors, whether directly and freely themselves according to the non-authoritarian way that Christ commands, or through the forced legal charity of state welfare and aid of the world. To be a Christian means that one must be an anarchist as far as man’s kingdoms go. They must be a man dedicated to the politics of another Kingdom altogether, which does not mix with the statist politics of the world. On the other hand, to be a statist means to adopt the religion of socialism, which negates one’s claims to Christianity, which is about another political method of organizing society than the statist means of the world. There is simply no such thing as a “statist Christian,” because to be a Christian means to advocate a “political” method of serving others that does not adopt the authoritarian, covetous practices of the world that is inherent to all man-made government, whether they merely provide law and protection or welfare and poor aid. Likewise, there is no such thing as an “atheist statist,” since to advocate for statism is to be a proponent of another religion, i.e., the socialist method of organizing society through the political means. 

The anarchist implications of Christianity as politics

While it is true that there is no real distinction between politics and religion, and that one’s religion should say everything about their politics and vice versa, the truth runs in the opposite direction as those who believe that their Christian religion compels them to engage in the politics of the world. On the contrary, the Christian religion leads men to anarchist political conclusions, where the Kingdom of God is sought outside the systems of man — that is, where the practice of pure religion, where men serve one another in a decentralized network of charity, is performed through non-authoritarian methods.

It is true that Christianity is not merely a “religion,” as the term is commonly understood. However, this fact does not give statists grounds to claim it means “taking our faith to the public square.” In reality, the truth that Christianity is not just another religion directly challenges anyone who involves themselves with the State, for statism itself is a competing religion that proposes that society should be organized along socialist means. Christianity is indeed a political idea. Yet, contrary to those who want to use this to justify their involvement in worldly politics, it is a political vision of another Kingdom — one where people care for one another through voluntary charity within a decentralized society of Kingdom-citizens, gathered under servant-ministers who serve as the governing body of God’s Kingdom.

When Christianity is understood as the politics of another Kingdom and religion is understood as one’s necessarily political beliefs about how a people should be served or how society should be organized, whether through the non-authoritarian methods outlined by Jesus Christ or statist methods of the people of the world whom He contrasted His Kingdom with (Mark 10:42-45), it is easy to see just how impossible it is for a Christian (i.e., one who holds to a certain idea of how society should be organized to provide for others) to be a statist, for statism is another religion altogether, where men are provided for through the socialist political means of the world, i.e., through tax-funded and forcibly-provided goods and services doled out by authoritarian rulers who hand out their dainties in order to ensnare all men who feed from their tables into bondage. This is why Scripture warns us that “when thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what [is] before thee: And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat” (Proverbs 23:1). Those who support the kingdoms of the world cannot be Christians, because “the Christian religion” demands that they do not covet their neighbors’ property, which all the statist systems of man are based upon (Ex 20:17). Scripture is not just “religious” rules telling men “thou shalt believe in God”; it is a civics textbook of anarchist political science telling men how they must live politically if they want to count themselves as servants of the Lord at all. Scripture is a warning to men that if they go the statist way of the world, which is opposed to God, that they will abandon God’s protection and find themselves in bondage to men. “Know for a certainty that the LORD your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which the LORD your God hath given you” (Joshua 23:13). All the warnings of God’s word were to avoid the bondage-inducing socialist practices of the world, where men erect political plunder systems to pool their spoils together and hand out benefits to any slave willing to take them and join in on the robbery. “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives. So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof” (Proverbs 1:10-19).

Christian politics 

Often when we tell others that Christians are not to be involved in the politics of the world, they assume—in this paradigm they live under where politics and religion are separate—that this means a total withdraw from all things earthly. All those who abstain from worldly politics are thought to be escapists who just want off the earth and into the heavens. They imagine us to be people whose sights are set on nothing greater than praying in the mountains, hiding out in a monastery, becoming monks, and seeking a retreat from all earthly life and responsibilities. Yet we are not arguing that Christians are to withdraw from all politics; we are arguing that Christians should be practicing pure religion (i.e., actually serving one another on our own), which is a certain political order in itself. Our contention is not that Christians must withdraw from all social life altogether, but that worldly politics is a religion that is contrary to the pure religion of Christianity. Our contention is not that Christians must not be involved in any politics whatsoever, but that they must be involved in the politics of God’s Kingdom order, rather than the politics of the world that works against it. 

In our day, where most Christians operate under a slew of false dichotomies that muddles their worldview and mixes up their priorities, it is widely assumed that anyone who doesn’t vote, run for office, send in campaign money to the “lesser evil” politician, or stake a campaign sign in their yard, is a person who doesn’t care about society at all. They are assumed to be people who are “just sitting on the sidelines” and who “don’t care if evil rulers takeover” (as if there is such a thing as a non-evil ruler). This idea that Christians are to be engaged in the politics of the world has largely been possible under this false dichotomy where politics and religion are separate things, such that it seems the only politics available for the Christian to pursue are that of the world, all while their “religion” is conceived of nothing more than their thoughts about God, their private bedside devotions, or their vain rituals that take place in their false “churches” which they call “worship services.”

If it were seen that the Kingdom of God is a literal kingdom where men practice the pure religion or serving one another freely with their voluntary charity, then it could be seen that Christians must pursue the politics of God’s Kingdom and that there is no real separation of “politics and religion.” To be religious is to be political, and vice versa. No longer would men think they can enter Egyptian polling stations, so long as they “go to church” on Sunday as their “religion.” Rather, these acts would both be seen as false religion that contradict the pure religion: the worldly-political act for its abandonment of God’s Kingdom for another religion, and the vain churchian rituals for having nothing to do with actually serving the people.

Again, it is only under the assumption that “politics and religion” are separate matters that one could assume that rejecting worldly politics merely means to practice some private, personal, or anti-social religion, understood as merely one’s thoughts or beliefs about God. If it were seen that pure religion is necessarily practicing the politics of God’s Kingdom, no one would accuse those who abstain from worldly politics as being slothful escapists who care not a thing about their earthly duties. On the contrary, they would see that it is actually those who practice the politics of the world who are involved in an unchristian religion, and that it is worldly-statists who are forsaking the Kingdom of God. Moreover, it would be impossible for anyone to accuse those who reject worldly politics as being men who don’t care to make their society better. God blesses those who seek His Kingdom (Matt 6:33), not those who partake in the politics of the world as their idea of taking their “faith” to the moon.

What we see is that when men arbitrarily separate “politics and religion,” they get both wrong. They not only fail to practice pure religion when they separate “religion” into mere churchian rituals on Sunday morning, but they also go on to practice the ungodly religion of participating in human civil government as they arbitrarily separate “politics” into something that a man does apart from his “faith.” 

Those who think they can be Christians and statists, like “Christian” nationalists who imagine themselves to be people who are more serious about their religion than the average slothful Christian, like think they are being profound by repeating “on earth as it is in heaven” to justify their participation in worldly politics. They like to imagine themselves to be non-slothful men whose supposedly non-apathetic acts like voting for false gods to organize their societies for them is proof that they are not forsaking the duty to seek the Kingdom of God. But since they believe this is done through the politics of the world, what they really mean is “through the State, as it is in Hell.”

It is true that presenting “religion” as a heavenly-minded “faith” concerned only with the afterlife has allowed men to forsake any earthly action and neglect politics altogether. Yet this still provides no case for pursuing worldly political action. The Lord’s prayer and the call to be “salt and light” are not a defense of participation in the politics of worldly kingdoms. They are calls to evangelize others into the Kingdom of God, which operates wholly apart from worldly politics.

Worldly politics and apathy

When men arbitrarily separate “politics and religion,” such that one is thought to be what you do in the “civic realm” and the other is thought to be who you are in the “spiritual realm,” then this false dichotomy shapes the worldview of people in such a way that the statist ideology (i.e., the belief in human civil government) is not seen to contradict one’s Christianity, since the former is confined to one’s “politics” and the other is confined to mere “religion,” stripped of any understanding of the Kingdom of God as a literal and political community.

In the worldview shaped under this false dichotomy that compartmentalizes politics and religion into two separate “realms,” men are able to then think that abstaining from worldly politics is somehow apathetic, but participating in it is somehow not. When “religion,” rightly understood, is not seen to be another political way of doing things, these people see the only politics available to a man as that of the world’s politics, and the politics of the Kingdom of God is completely out of their minds. 

Yet the politics of the kingdoms of the world is not the only politics available to men, and seeking this politics is indeed to pursue another religious order altogether. The politics of human civil government is not the only “activities” or “affairs” available to men for the organization of their society, an idea which is only possible under the failure by Christians to understand the political nature of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God that points men to another political jurisdiction where Jesus is a people’s sole King. 

But when the separation of “politics and religion” permits men to place these things in two different categories, they not only fail to see that it is impossible to pursue Babylonian politics without contradicting the pure religion, but they are also completely blinded to there being a path of seeking righteousness and the Kingdom of God that doesn’t involve man’s political systems. In this false dichotomy, they can only imagine that anyone who doesn’t participate in these evils like them is just sitting back in their Babylonian recliner as evil prevails, while they kid themselves that casting ballots (i.e., acting like Babylonians themselves) equates to “Christians who are doing something about evil.”

When the false dichotomy of “politics and religion” is cleared up, the charges we can level against those who still participate in worldly politics or churchian rituals while claiming to be Christians are devastating and prove them to be nothing less than false converts who don’t understand the religio-political ideology that Christianity puts forth. Those men who accuse those of us who reject worldly politics as a means for advancing a godly society are effectively arguing that seeking Christ’s Kingdom is “doing nothing!” This is an amazing claim for anyone who professes to be a Christian! It amounts to saying that “God’s Kingdom doesn’t work!” It is a claim that “the Gospel isn’t enough” and that men who are serious about changing society must go into the kingdoms of the world and vote men into power who will pass legislation to bring about the society we need. These men who engage in the politics of the world and assume that anyone who doesn’t follow them is a retreatist hippie who is just waiting to be raptured into heaven like to imagine that they are making something of their religion. But they are really only letting the world inform their politics and proving themselves to not understand the basic “religious” precepts of Christianity at all, which calls men to repent, come out of the world, and seek the Kingdom of God instead. 

Politics and the Kingdom of God

The problem for many people is that when they rightly get the notion that the Lord and His word should inform our politics or does have something to say about men being activists for God, they are only minded in worldly politics and imagine that this activism includes making appeals to Babylon to serve us. It has been so ingrained in them that statist political violence is the only way to organize a society and that the only politics available to men is the world’s politics, that the best they can come up with when they do become more political-minded, rather than simply religious-minded (as these words are popularly understood), is the notion that “we should take our Christian faith to the politics of the kingdoms of the world.” In their attempt to break out of this false dichotomy of politics and religion, they mere abandon the Christian religion altogether to become statists.

Again, these people are operating under a false dichotomy where men are either (1) spiritual-religious men who neglect to form a politics because they don’t partake in the world’s, or (2) where man are “serious” about their “religion” and carry it into the world of statist politics as a voter, agitator for legislation, or a candidate for political office himself. This is a false dichotomy too that is along the same lines as the general one we are outlining. The problem is that it conveniently excludes another option: (3) the anti-statist Kingdom-seeker who is neither (1) a slothful “religious” man or (2) a worldly-statist, but seeks the Kingdom of God as a political order, entirely outside the kingdoms of man. Furthermore, this isn’t just “another” option but the only true one. Those who sit around and do nothing are not practicing pure religion and taking care of the needy of their society by breaking bread with fellow Kingdom-seekers in a Kingdom-network of families congregated together for this cause, and neither are those who involve themselves with the kingdoms of the world. The religious-sloth vs. the statist-kingdom-seeker is not just a false dichotomy that limits other choices, but a false dichotomy of two entirely false options that excludes the only genuine path of repentance from the sin of idolatry, covetousness, and slothfulness that a man could even take.

It has indeed been problematic that many Christians have thought they have no need to form a political position, under this false notion that “religion” has nothing to do with one’s actual practices (e.g., serving their fellow brothers with charity in a Kingdom network). However, it is just as problematic for people to think they are getting away from this by diving into the statist politics of the world. The (2) statists who imagine themselves to be making something of the (1) mere religion of the spiritual escapists are not doing them one better by throwing themselves into the politics of the world, but are merely showing that they, too, do not understand the pure religion of Jesus Christ, which has nothing to do with sitting around in pews or partaking in the politics of the world’s kingdoms, but stands opposed to both of these things.

By rightly shunning the politics of the world, it should not be thought that we are failing to have a politics at all, because the political nature of Christian religion is not statist anyway. Christians must have a politics and see that their religion is a political theory. Christianity, as we have been arguing, does provide a politics and is not merely a “religion,” colloquially understood. However, this politics should be decidedly the politics of God’s Kingdom, and not that of man’s kingdoms. Christians should be engaged in the “politics” of furthering the Kingdom of God, which, as opposed to the kingdoms of the world, entails appointing servant-ministers to facilitate the distribution of the freewill offerings of families who are assembled together in congregations for mutual service to one another across this Kingdom-network. We should, of course, agree that Christians must have a politics and that “religion” is not merely confined to the bedroom when a man kneels down in prayer. But we are only compounding the error if we are to believe that Christian politics is statist and that Christian action beyond the home involves partaking in the sinful politics of the kingdoms of man. 

The statist reaction against Christian slothfulness

Much of the statist reaction we see today among Christian nationalists and other statists who imagine themselves at the forefront of a Christian movement by advocating for the “Christianization” of worldly governments has come in large part due to the century of slothfulness that preceded them, during which many Christians neglected their religious duty to build God’s Kingdom. Their statism is largely a reaction against a century of slothfulness, such that they imagine that anyone who isn’t willing to do as they are must be an escapist “dispensationalist” who is just sitting around and waiting for the end times to arrive. Yet in pursuing the politics of the world, they have only fallen into greater error—trading slothfulness for outright idolatry—by believing that the Christian mission involves participation in worldly politics.

As much as the statists who imagine themselves to be some Christian warriors and crusaders of the faith believe they are expanding the Christian religion beyond the confines of the slothful men of the twentieth-century by launching it into “the public square” and participating in worldly politics, what we really see is that they are also victims of failing to see the political essence of Scripture, which calls men to seek the anarchistic Kingdom of God—another political community altogether—outside of the kingdoms of the world. Whereas those whose main sins were sloth neglect it altogether, those whose main sin is outright idolatry come to believe that statism doesn’t contradict Christianity and even advocate that men throw themselves into the voting booths of Pharaoh’s kingdoms and pray to false gods to save them. Both the people who think “religion” is just a private or personal matter and those who think that it should go beyond the bedside and into the state legislatures effectively make the same error of not seeing that the Christian “religion” is indeed political, albeit the anarchist “politics” of God’s Kingdom that stands opposed to the kingdoms of the world. The escapists fail to seek God’s Kingdom entirely, believing that “religion” doesn’t compel them toward any actions beyond their professions of faith in God, and the other evilly believes that they are seeking it by working through the Egyptian systems of the world to obtain it. The slothfulness of the latter has only been “combated” by outright idolatry and evil of the former. Whereas some churchians sit in pews and say not to mix “politics and religion,” others come along and call for men to jump straight into Pharaoh’s voting booths. Yet both running to the pews and the polls represent sinful and slothful behavior, and they both contradict the pure religion of Christianity, whether by not serving their brothers at all or begging Pharaoh to do it for them.

At any rate, to have stripped Christian doctrine of its political essence has caused great confusion among many. When the “gospel” is not seen as the political proclamation of a conquering King who promises salvation through His advancing Kingdom—actual deliverance and liberation from statist enemies—then people can claim to “believe the gospel” without working to extend God’s rule, as is the case with the slothful Christians who don’t think Christianity has anything to do with political ideas. On the other hand, some believe they can embrace the statist religion without realizing they’re adopting a false faith in false gods who offer counterfeit salvation to those who trust, vote, and rally behind their campaigns and political reigns, which is the case among the statist “Christians” who imagine they’re doing “the Lord’s work” in the kingdoms of men.

The sinful ideology and practice of statism among Christians today has been largely possible under the mainstream ideas of Christianity that has that its political essence—the gospel of another Kingdom and the earthly salvation in Jesus Christ—stripped from its message, such that men seek salvation in human government, when the very salvation the Lord Jesus offers is freedom from being dominated by human governors. 

The false dichotomy of Christian nationalists

Since the majority of professing Christians have indeed wrongly confined their idea of Christianity to a personal private matter and have thought that “religion” is nothing more than their beliefs about God or the Sunday rituals they performed in so-called churches, other men have been able to come along and launch this idea into another fallacious direction and claim that it must, therefore, become a part of the statist political systems of the world. Whereas we could just stop thinking of Christianity as merely a “religion” that describes a man’s personal beliefs about God and actually begin seeking God’s literal Kingdom on earth, these men, thinking that anyone who doesn’t engage in worldly politics is just an apathetic man, suggest that it is a Christian goal to take over the worldly systems of government. As the “Christian” Nationalist, Joel Webbon, says, “It is not enough for our Christian faith to be personal and private; it must also be powerful, potent, and public” (Response to Rod Dreher, 11/18/25). These deceitful men are not wrong about the first part: religion is much more than a personal and private matter, as it has been thought of today. It is true that Christianity is not just a religion, so-called, but a politics regarding another Kingdom, which must be taken beyond the “personal” and “private.” However, this does not mean it is statist. In their vain attempt to move “religion” beyond the idea of kneeling down by your bedside in prayer or merely proclaiming that you “believe in God,” these statists take things in the wrong direction, arguing that it is a program of worldly politics. We must indeed make our Christian faith more than just some private or personal matter, which is not what pure religion is about. Yet this is done precisely by seeking the Kingdom of God with our neighbors, not through attempting to reform Babylonian systems. These men, however, do not see that the statist systems of the world are inherently socialist and represent public religion, which is antagonistic to the pure religion of Christian, where men are served freely in a society of people who are seeking God’s Kingdom and living a different way (or they do and they know they are acting as deliberate false prophets).  

Joel Webbon, one of the more popular false prophets of Christian nationalism, likes to repeat the idea that “power is neutral” and that the real question is only who gets a hold of it, whether “Christians” or “atheists.” Hence the false dichotomy of a “Christian State” or a “secular State.” The problem with the State is only a matter of getting “godly” men in power. They thus see no reason to take a principled stance against power and authority, as Jesus clearly did (Mark 10:42-45). As this false pastor claims, “Power is ultimately a tool; it’s amoral…it is a tool that can be used like any tool, to do good or to do evil” (Webbon, Response to Rod Dreher, 11/18/25).

Though these statists fancy themselves as men who are expanding their understanding of religion beyond the confines of the home where other men have mostly kept it, politics and religion are ultimately still two separate things to them, such that the public religion of statism, which they see as their politics, does not contradict their “Christianity” on the other hand, which they see mostly as a mere religion. They don’t believe that the Christian religion calls them to do things another way altogether than the statist political means of the world. They don’t see Christianity as a political ethic that forbids any professing adherent from employing the statist means of the world as its means of serving others. The political means of the world are to them just an “amoral tool.” This allows them to completely dispense with the inherently-political teachings of Jesus and argue that Christians must throw themselves into the Roman systems of the world, lest the pagans be in charge. As Webbon says, “If Christians will not wield power righteously, then the wicked will wield power in sinister ways” (Response to Rod Dreher, 11/18/25). They never pause to realize that all those who seek power are unrighteous and sinister men, who are not only evil, but also reject the pure religion of Christ, where men are served freely in a private, decentralized, and anarchistic Kingdom-community that functions apart from the world and its systems.