Part three of seven. Having argued that Christ’s authority reaches the civil order, and that our eschatology shapes what we believe is worth attempting under it, I come now to the term most likely to end a conversation before it starts. The criticisms of Christian nationalism raised at the conference deserve serious consideration, and I want to grant what should be granted before I say where I differ.

Christian Nationalism and the Christian Character of a Nation

The conference included substantial criticism of Christian nationalism. Some of those concerns deserve serious consideration.

There is a legitimate danger in confusing national identity with Christian identity, treating the nation as though it were the church, or using Christianity as a tool for political ambition. The church is composed of believers from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. No earthly nation can claim to exhaust the identity of the people of God.

There are also legitimate concerns about coercion, religious liberty, nominal Christianity, and the temptation to use state power to accomplish what only the Holy Spirit can accomplish.

However, I believe we must distinguish between these dangers and the broader question of whether a nation can, or should, order its public life according to Christian principles. The fact that Christian nationalism can be distorted or abused does not, by itself, establish that a nation should refuse to acknowledge Christ or that Christian principles should be excluded from civil government.

Christian nationalism is a term used to describe a variety of positions, and those positions should not all be treated as interchangeable. Ethnic nationalism dressed in Christian language is not the same thing as a conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord over civil rulers and that His moral law is relevant to public justice.

Nor is the belief that a nation should acknowledge Christ necessarily a belief that the church and state should become one institution.

My own position begins with a relatively straightforward observation: If a population becomes substantially Christian in its convictions, worldview, and practice, it is entirely natural that its laws and institutions will increasingly reflect those convictions. I would go further: I believe a society ought to evaluate its public life according to the truth of God’s revelation rather than treating Christianity as relevant only to private belief and personal conduct.

Laws are not created in a cultural vacuum. They reflect the moral assumptions, priorities, and beliefs of the people who make them. A society that comes to embrace Christianity deeply and broadly will inevitably begin to express that transformation in its understanding of justice, family, education, public morality, and civil responsibility.

If a population is significantly Christian and seeks to live righteously, why would we expect its public institutions to remain fundamentally unchanged? Why would we expect a Christian majority to regard its deepest convictions as relevant to personal conduct but irrelevant to the collective life of the nation?

This does not mean that whatever a Christian majority supports is automatically just, or that every Christian conviction translates directly into a civil statute. Christian political judgments must themselves be tested against Scripture, and the proper scope of civil authority must be considered carefully. Nor can a government manufacture genuine Christianity through legislation. It cannot.

Rather, my argument is that a society shaped by Christianity will naturally have political consequences, and that a society ought not to regard those consequences as illegitimate merely because they arise from Christian convictions. A society shaped by Christianity will not make the same moral and political judgments as a society shaped by secular humanism, materialism, or another competing worldview.

The question is not whether a society’s dominant worldview will influence its laws. It will. The deeper question is which worldview ought to shape them, and by what standard its laws should be judged. I believe that standard must ultimately be grounded in God’s truth, with civil government exercising its authority within the responsibilities God has assigned to it.

Next week: the objection that matters most, and why no ancestry has ever purchased a standing before God.

Above All Rule — part 3 of 7:

1. The Authority That Does Not Stop at the Church Door
2. Are We Building, or Are We Waiting to Leave?
3. When a Christian People Makes Laws (you are here)

Later parts in this series have not been published yet. They will appear here as they are released.