Correcting a Particularly Bad Argument Against Christian Nationalism
When it comes to the current debate over Christian Nationalism, Protestia has effectively remained Evangelical Switzerland. We’d prefer to stay neutral, but just in case, we’ve got proverbial bunkers and munition pillboxes on every mountain top. Like the Swiss during WWII, being prepared to engage means we have thus far had the luxury of relative peace. Our official position is that we don’t have one, at least until sides firm up a little bit.
But from time to time, if we see awful arguments on either side, we’ll call it out as equal-opportunity doctrine-criticizers and argument-refiners.
In case you’ve been under a rock, Christian Nationalism has been an argument of sore contention this election cycle and shows signs of being an upcoming debate for years in the future. Essentially, as best we can summarize, Christian Nationalism is the notion that God prefers that nation states be explicitly Christian nature (if not theocratic, in particular), and rejects religious pluralism (which asserts that people have the natural right promising the freedom of religion).
One reason for Protestia’s neutrality is that before a debate can be had on whether or not God desires Christian Nationalism, is that Christian Nationalists must first have a robust debate as to how to define their own terms. Like, are we considering Roman Catholics a part of this? What about the Eastern Orthodox? Mormons? What do we do with the Constitution? Will a First Amendment remain? You get the point. The discussion is too fluid at this point to provide much good picking a side.
However, if you’re having a hard time deciding which is the correct position, it might be helpful to “train the powers of your discernment” (Hebrews 5:14) by critiquing criticism one side gives the other. Often, recognizing bad arguments can be as helpful as recognizing good ones.
The critique of Christian Nationalism by Texas Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat in the Texas House of Representatives, provided one of those very bad arguments. Like, really bad. As in, we want to dress up as Douglas Wilson for Halloween, now.
Talarico was raised Presbyterian and is a member of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin. The church website doesn’t manage to share the gospel anywhere, or elaborate on their statement of faith to any degree, but they do have photos demonstrating they “support women’s reproductive rights” and “affirms the full participation of all ages, sex and gender identities, races, color, and ethnicities in all our endeavors.”
Watch the clip below.
The video begins with an accusation, devoid of any clarification or substantiation, a sort of presuppositional claim that doesn’t appear to be backed by anything of Scriptural significance. Talarico’s claim is that “Christian Nationalists walk around with a mouth full of Scripture and a heart full of hate.”
Cool story. Let’s move on.
At the 15 second mark, Talarico asserts, “Jesus didn’t tell us to love our churches.”
Talarico seems to make a common mistake (or purposeful perversion) of Biblical hermeneutics, which is to divorce Christ’s words we personally spoke from those words he instructed his hand-chosen apostles to give us. Liberals like to act as though only the words in red matter, as though all of the words in the 66 Books of the Bible aren’t inspired by the Thrice Holy God.
But beyond that subtle attempt to put the Apostles and Prophets at odds with their Messiah, Talarico’s claims are flatly incorrect.
Jesus commanded the church to love each other, just as Jesus loved them (John 13:34). In fact, it is Jesus’ love for the church that Christians are commanded to show each other (Ephesians 5:25). One of the reasons we are commanded to love the church is because it is considered to be Christ’s chosen bride (Mark 2, Matthew 22, Matthew 25).
At the 19 second mark, Talarico asserts, “He didn’t tell us to love our doctrines or our creeds.”
Again, Talarico’s claim is factually incorrect.
Jesus quite clearly loved the Scriptures. He loved the Scriptures so much he gave a respectful rebuke to his mother and Joseph, claiming that teaching the Old Testament was his “father’s business.” Jesus quite literally prioritized the Scripture above his parents. This, of course, is true to Jesus’ character who demanded we love him more than we love our mother or father (Matthew 10:37, Luke 14:26-27). In the great Love Chapter of 1st Corinthians 13, we are told (verses 4-7) that love celebrates truth. Truth, of course, is found in the Word of God (Psalm 33:4).
In fact, the Bible tells us repeatedly to love God’s Scriptures. David, the “man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22), wrote in Psalm 1:2 that he delights in God’s word and meditates upon them day and night. Please note, David wrote this as a corporate worship song designed to be sung by believers to God. In other words, the Holy Spirit inspired a worship song to be written, in which we are to profess our love of God’s Scriptures to God.
Talarico then says at the 26 second mark, “He told us to love our neighbors.”
Obviously, loving our neighbors is not contradictory to loving God’s church or loving God’s words. In fact, a little clarity on the passage Talarico references (albeit not by name), which is Matthew 22:37-40. We’ll quote it.
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Notice that Jesus’ claim that loving our neighbor is “the second greatest commandment” is in response to the Pharisee’s question of “What is the greatest commandment?”
Jesus told them that loving God, the first greatest commandment, and loving our neighbor, the second greatest commandment, is a summary of God’s law. In other words, we know that loving our neighbor is the second greatest command because the law and prophets declare it.
By the way, Jesus wasn’t teaching something new. He was quoting Leviticus 19:18 which simply says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
At the 45 second mark, Talarico then quotes his “favorite theologian,” a pro-abortion Episcopal priest named Barbara Brown Taylor, who claims that “Jesus did not come to be worshiped.“
He quotes the lady priest, “The only clear line I draw these days is this; when my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor.”
It’s here that a little competency in Scripture reading would be helpful. Please note that loving our neighbor is the second greatest commandment. The first greatest commandment is to love God. Simply put, placing your neighbor higher than God and his worship, is idolatry.
At the 1.07 mark, Talarico again quotes Taylor (although he does not cite her this time), saying “Not once, in the entire Bible, does Jesus ask us to worship him.”
As a professing Christian, it’s a weird flex to cite a thoroughly Muslim and Arian cultist argument. Clearly, Jesus commands that we worship him by demanding that we worship God. We would spend time here explaining with great detail the number of times Jesus eluding to being God, straight-up said he was God, was charged with blasphemy because the Pharisees interpreted his words as claiming to be God, or demonstrating that he was God. But Talarico doesn’t claim to be a Muslim or an Aryan who denies the deity of Christ. He is lecturing Christians as a supposed, professed Christian.
Presuming that Christ is God, as Talarico should as a professed Christian, it should be sufficient enough to point out that when – in Luke 19:39 – the Pharisees rebuked Christ because his disciples worshiped him, not only did Jesus not rebuke them, he said, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”
At the 1.20 mark, Talarico says, “All Jesus asks is that we follow him, and love like he loved.”
Following Jesus entails a little more than loving the right things (it also involved hating the right things), but Talarico is quite correct in claiming that we are to love the way that Jesus loved. And he “loved the church and laid down his life for it” (Ephesians 5:25).
Whether or not Christian Nationalism is a good notion, depends largely upon two things. The first is how Christian Nationalism is defined. The second is whether or not it backfires and causes God’s people unintended damage. We’ll happily admit that, for us, both are yet to be seen.
What’s not unseen, however, is the visceral hatred that Scripture-twisters have for Christian Nationalism and the predictably bad arguments its most ardent opponents often employ against it.
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Talrico’s most substantial error, in stating to exclusion that “He told us to love our neighbor(s)” is ; No, we have never been told this – in plural. For good reason; Our neighbor practices Judeo-Christianity or such is not our neighbor. Our neighbor need not have a dwelling nor even be in our vicinity. If our “neighbor” claims our faith but perverts scripture for sinful purposes, then this is not a neighbor and we may exercise Free Will to pray for them or not or, if unrepentant then as an enemy.
In Mt. 10:14, et alibi, Jesus commands his apostles to kick the dust of blasphemous from their feet. Or we might colloquially say: “to hell with ’em”.
First off, Judeo-Christianity is not a thing to be practiced. it is a loose category to try to define belief without the bother of sound theology. Second, Jesus told the parable of the good Samaritan to dispel the notion that our neighbor is only the one like us. After all, to His Jewish crowd, would not the priest or the Levite be the obvious neighbor. Instead, the hated Samaritan is the neighbor.
There are differences that are not a factor, and differences that are. The dividing line is what is sinful and what is not. Things like ethnicity, skin color, etc. are not a factor, and are not supposed to be on our priority list at all. That’s what the parable of the Good Samaritan was about. The keyword is “good”. I.e., he was a righteous man who served the Lord, while those like the Levite who passed the beaten man by, were hypocrites who did not live a righteous life.
The point was specifically that the dividing line is between what is sinful and what is righteous, rather than ethnicity. The Samaritans where Jews of mixed race. They were not of any false or pagan religion. And many of them believed on Jesus.
So, while you make a good and fair point, AD, I have to agree with Hugh in the proper interpretation of what it means to love thy neighbor in context. There’s more to it than just whether or not one is “like us”. Much more to it. If the Bible says something is a priority then it is a priority. If not, then it isn’t. Some differences are insignificant, while others are not. And the Bible is fairly clear on which is which.
If an illegal immigrant is already here, for example, and we find him beaten on the side of the road, then of course we stop and help. But securing the border, and working to stop illegal immigration is not a matter of failing to love our neighbor. Our obligations to help people who are trying to illegally cross the border, thousands of miles away (for most of us), are way down the list of priorities. There are many neighbors in need much closer to home, who should be our first concern.
Jesus use of the word “neighbor” is telling, and indicative of a priority, by itself. The word is “plēsion” (Strongs 4139), and it means “Near, nearby, a neighbor. Neuter of a derivative of pelas; close by; as noun, a neighbor”.
There’s a spiritual nearness, and then a physical nearness. But one thing to note about the physical nearness, is that we are told to be ye separate. We’re not supposed to have unbelieving neighbors at all. We’re not supposed to move in next door to them, in the first place. Nobody honors that scripture, except for groups such as the Amish, but that is technically what we’re supposed to do, and the scripture needs to be interpreted with that context in mind, as well as exclusion of those who we’re told to avoid, and those to be driven out as a matter of purging the evil from our midst. So even in the physical sense of proximity, it still includes only fellow believers, in context.
Or I should say, “first includes fellow believers” in context. Unbelievers are on the list, but they’re lesser priority than our brothers and sisters in Christ, as we properly evaluate by the fruit.
In that parable the Samaritan is the good neighbor of the man he found beaten on the side of the road. I.e., the one near to him. Not necessarily the neighbor of those to whom He told the parable.
Anyone who has ever done anything to help others knows that there is always a necessity to prioritize. One man can only do so much. We cannot be responsible for the entire planet. And the scripture recognizes this. It is God’s design, and it is reality.
So those in South America who are in need are the responsibility of their local churches in South America. That is their neighbor. Not the US taxpayer.
Importing cheap labor to take your neighbor’s job is not exactly loving your neighbor. Bringing in criminals and gangsters and human traffickers who will harm your neighbors is not loving your neighbor. Allowing the abuse of asylum programs is not loving your neighbor.
Could go on, but you get the point. There is a priority. And it is sinful to not follow and honor that priority. As 1 Tim 5:8 makes clear, if we don’t first take care of our own relatives and household, we are worse than an unbeliever. Next priority is brothers and sisters in Christ geographically/physically nearby, and on down the list.
Always look to the Apostles for the proper explanation of Jesus’ teaching. The explanation for Matt. 22:37-44 is plainly given in the Epistles, in passages such as 1 John 5:1-5.
It means, you cannot love your neighbor unless you first love the Lord. And if you Love the Lord, you will keep His commandments (John 14:15)
Talarico is certainly way off, and wouldn’t understand scripture if it smacked him upside the head.
That said, the problem I have with many on the Christian Nationalist side, such as Wolfe, EDW, and so on, is that they also don’t stick to the scripture, and also wouldn’t understand it if it smacked them upside the head. Many of them are just as bad. They have a very bad habit of adding on a bunch of Pharisaical mess, such as the notion that there is not only a mandate to marry, but to marry somebody with the same skin color. And not unlike you guys here over the past few weeks, wild and baseless claims such as the notion that it is a sin not to vote. Then you, just yesterday, in perfectly woke fashion, just like the left, lump any and all Eunuchs and unmarried men, into the same category as wicked abominations.
They also tend to be more inclined to a covenant theology that is close to, if not the same as, replacement theology, and tend to be very anti-semitic, anti-Israel, and not only verge from scripture but from the Gospel itself, often laying blame at the feet of the Jews rather than the place where it belongs – ADAM. They’ll read through the book of Romans, and not one single word of it sinks into their fool noggins. They don’t even know and understand the context of Rom. 6:23. They can quote it all day long, every day, but it still hasn’t sunk in.
And they tend to be somewhat inclined toward trying to create Heaven on earth in the here and now, and reject much scripture in the process. They accuse John MacArthur of “loser theology” because he correctly says of the events leading up to the end times, “we lose”. Yet, MacArthur is 100% correct. The closer the world gets to the end, the worse it will be for Christians. Scripture is clear on that fact. Through our loss, the Lord wins. His victory isn’t dependent on any victory or loss of ours.
There are several legitimate criticisms of the CN movement. But the bottom line is that the nationalism many of them seem to want couldn’t reasonably be described as Christian nationalism, because they stray too far from scripture.
You ask which denomination. You ask whether catholic or protestant.
For crying out loud, just somebody who can manage the simple task of sticking to the scripture would be a vast improvement …
Should’ve read Romans 3:23, not 6:23.
Another distinction given in scripture, that is often missed, and that Talarico misses, is the distinction between fellow believers vs the rest of world. Many scriptures clearly refer solely to fellow believers. That is also the context of Matt. 22:37-44, as John explains in 1 John 5:1-5. Your first and foremost “neighbors” are your brothers and sisters in Christ. They take priority long before the rest of the wicked world. As passages such as 1 Tim. 5 and 6 elaborate, our responsibility and obligations work outward.
That is chapters five and six of 1 Tim. The automatically applied link incorrectly inferred verse six.
The scripture establishes a definition of what is meant by our neighbor. It is first and foremost our brothers and sisters in Christ around us, and if that includes those in our own household, then our own household and relatives first priority (1 Tim. 5:8).
As it relates to illegal immigration, there is no question the republicans are correct on that. It’s not that we hate illegal immigrants. It’s that they are way, way down the list in priority, in terms of our obligations to the Lord. They’re not our neighbor, not necessarily because they may or may not be believers, but because they’re from another flipping country. They’re way down the list of priority, and they should be.
But once it is established what is meant by our neighbor, then the question is who is truly a fellow believer – who is our brother. Well, shockingly enough, the Apostles explained this to us, and elaborated on Jesus’ teaching us to know the tree by the fruit. For example, one who continues in sin is not born of God (1 John 3:4-10. It is not the wolves. It is not the abominable sinners. It is not those the scripture specifically tells us not to associate with (1 Cor 5, 2 Tim. 3, etc.). They are at the absolute bottom of the list of priorities and obligations, far behind any and every brother and sister in Christ on the entire planet, and far behind those given to lesser sins.
Scripture tells us exactly what is meant by Matt. 22:37-44, and it is very clear and easy to understand, if we’ll pay attention …
And of course, Jesus Himself established that priority. Two commandments set the priority. There is a first and foremost, and a second and lesser. The Apostles then explained it in greater detail.
The left has completely inverted that list of priorities, and in so doing has made itself the guilty party in terms of hating their neighbor. Placing the worst of sinners at the top of the list. There’s no doubt Talarico wouldn’t comprehend the scripture if it smacked him in the face. There is no doubt that democrats are the worser of evils.
But unfortunately, as of 2024, the republican platform does much of the same. It doesn’t necessarily flip priorities entirely upside down, but does some significant rearranging that cannot be ignored, such as shifting abominable sinners way up the list where they do not belong.
As far as I’m concerned, I believe we’re seeing God’s judgment beginning to take place. And for that reason, it cannot, and will not, be stopped. He’s getting ready to open up a can of whooparse like the world has never seen. And we’d best just stay out of His way lest we too be destroyed. That is my opinion and my belief.
There’s not anything any of us can do to stop the Lord’s judgment. Best thing to do is to just get out of His way and hide behind Him. It’s His battle. It’s His war. It will be conducted according to His strategies, not ours. And it is already won. The intervening time is just three days in the grave.
T – I’m not going to read all that hoping that there’s something worthwhile in there.
My apologies. I was not aware that anyone was being forced to read it. I can assure you, if you don’t want to read it, you’re free not to read it. Thank you for sharing.