I listened to a Charlie Kirk video (the famous, recently assassinated leader of a young people’s political organization) where he explained that he was not a Christian Nationalist, but he was a Christian and a Nationalist. I have appreciated a lot of what Charlie Kirk has said about the direction of the country and much of what he said about Christianity and being a Christian, but this video truly gave me pause because it was so objectively wrong. He was in a discussion with an articulate, biblically literate young Christian man who said Christian Nationalism was not something Christ would have supported. Charlie response was to point out a bunch of Old Testament verses that were specifically for the Jewish people or Jews operating in governments that had taken them into captivity. He then said that in Matthew 16:18 where it says, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it,” the word church was translated from the Greek word ecclesia which is an assembly of people. The fact that, at one time and place, the Greek nation was ruled by an ecclesia does not argue for what was translated to the word “church” to be what Christian’s aim for in setting up national government. Rather, it is arguing that the church is founded on the revelation that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” In this context, whether you describe yourself as a Christian Nationalist or a Christian and a Nationalist is a distinction without a difference. I want to clearly point out that I completely avoided the topic of race in all of this.

It is almost as scary to see this movement as it is the movement at the other end of the political spectrum. We live in turbulent and interesting times.