Thanks for your post. Christian nationalism goes back to Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority. And Pat Robertson with his Christian Coalition. It's the marriage of Christianity and politics with the goal of making the US a "Christian nation" once again through the political and legal processes. They have a strong belief that the US was founded on a covenant relationship with God; that the US is the new Israel as God's chosen people. Back in the early days it was relatively benign, but lately they've become much more aggressive, as was demonstrated on January 6. This picture says it all.
Don't get me wrong, I am 100% for having Christians in political office, and I think it is an honor to serve our country and our God in that career. What concerns me is like Falwell and Robertson back in their day, there is a closed-mindedness, isolationism, and perhaps even a hint of arrogance and superiority in extreme views on how Christianity is applied to politics.
I enjoyed watching Falwell's Sunday morning worship service, and he was a really good teacher and quite a speaker/preacher as well. His messages were grounded in the Bible, the Gospel, and he focused on Jesus. The only turn off for me was he was quite aggressive at asking for donations, and the later part of his program was devoted to his revenue-generating campaign.
On the whole, though, Falwell and Robertson were not very popular in our culture and country as a whole in politics; they were viewed as extremists who were out of touch with the needs of the nation at that time.
Right now, I'm just advising caution. Trying to push a Christian agenda in Washington and make this a "Christian" nation under our initiatives alone is not feasible. Russell Kirk and T.S. Eliot are Christian scholars who have written extensively on this topic, and Eliot in particular said there is no way a Christian society on the whole is possible in the United States. We are too diverse and even divided in our ideologies. He did think it was a possibility for England and detailed his ideas in the following text:
A Christian nation and world on the whole are only possible when Jesus returns. In the meantime, we need to make the best of this "sordid tragedy" (Eliot), our fallen world.
I really appreciate the feedback I've received from you and everyone else on this important topic!
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