be Emboldened’s Critique of Christian Nationalism

be Emboldened is a unique ministry offering compassionate, biblically-grounded care to individuals who have experienced religious abuse. At the time of this writing, a collection of scandals in the New Apostolic Reformation is fostering a broad conversation in evangelicalism about the cultic nature of NAR, and biblical problems in its various distinctives, such as their form of Christian Nationalism known as the Seven Mountains Mandate. As part of this discussion, be Emboldened recently offered their perspective on this and other forms of Christian Nationalism.

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Because the views offered on Biblical Polity would probably fall under most definitions of Christian Nationalism critiqued in this video, it seemed good to write up a response. While I would share many of the same concerns regarding NAR and other political theories that deviate from scripture, I disagree with the essential solution presented by be Emboldened, which reflects the perspective of pietism reiterated and enlarged by traditional evangelicalism over the last few centuries. The purpose of SHADE Theory is to fill a void left by pietism/evangelicalism in its retreat from politics, which relinquishes the whole field of study and practice to unbiblical groups like NAR or Secular Humanism. Rather than fear Christian political theory, and hand the world of politics over to the humanists, we need to ensure that our theory and practice is thoroughly biblical, learning lessons from history as needed.

A second motivation for drafting a response is that having an article which addresses key issues surrounding Christian Nationalism will be useful for the next year or two as the main content of this site is developed. Biblical Polity is very much under development, and will be for several years before its formal launch. Yet the need for biblical dialogue in this space is pressing, so for the sake of having tools to equip people in the short-term, articles such as these will fill a need.

It should be noted up front that be Emboldened made it clear in the video that they don’t take a formal stance on Christian Nationalism as an organization. Yet there was real ideological content in the resource they shared, so for the sake of simplicity, I’ll refer to that content as be Emboldened’s stance or opinion, or reference the particular speaker involved (Naomi or Lindsey).

Abolition as a Counterpoint to be Emboldened’s Ideology

As I was thinking about be Emboldened’s various objections to various forms of Christian Nationalism, I decided that the abolitionist movement against slavery would be a good initial counterpoint to bring out, to clear up some of the rhetoric presented in the video which critiques even to the milder forms of Christian Nationalism that they didn’t seem to mind as much. Because abolitionists fall under many of the same critiques that be Emboldened brings against Christian Nationalism, and because the abolitionists of slavery are highly respected in our age of history, their example can help to uncover a subtle tension that exists in the modern evangelical mind in its anti-political beliefs.

For example, be Emboldened critiqued the divisive us-vs-them nature of Christian Nationalism, yet the abolitionists were also a divisive group of Christians who insisted that other Christians and the nation at large were in sin, for either supporting or apathetically tolerating chattel slavery. This charge of sin became a dividing line that deeply separated people, such as e.g. entire denominations splitting over the issue. If for the sake of unity, the abolitionists chose not to draw a line in the sand, and insist that Christians and others must cross that line or come under their (often scathing) critiques, chattel slavery would be legal to this day. be Emboldened’s ideology as presented in the video would seem to disparage making that kind of a distinction.

Naomi: I don’t think Christian Nationalism would moreso be a sprinkle of things. It’s much more like we all gotta lock in. And whoever isn’t locked in isn’t with us, they get othered. Maybe not that they’re not Christian at all, but they’re at least not as achieving, not as on fire, not as some thing, not as holy, not gonna be as close to Jesus. Like there’s some kind of distinction there…

Lindsey: Yeah, it’s really an us versus them mentality. And a lot of Christian Nationalists don’t actually want to have conversations. It’s all or nothing. You’re either with us or against us. And that is not helpful. And that actually does in many cases lead to abusive situations, where people don’t feel free to leave, or share their own perspectives in a safe way…They’re not practicing syncretism where they’re adding in different perspectives from different places.

The tension of course is that while Christians strive toward unity in truth and love as an ultimate goal of our movement, Christianity is, at base, an us vs them religion. We stand against sin and those who commit it — in ourselves, in the Church, in the nation, etc. And sinful people don’t like that. Just as Cain attacked and murdered Abel, people who are devoted to their sin will actively work to undermine and destroy those who demonstrate humble, repentant righteousness which exposes the darkness around them (Mat 23:29-36). Christians believe that there is light and there is darkness, and that it is impossible to have syncretistic unity between them. The light reaches out to the darkness with compassion, a call to repentance, and an offer of forgiveness through Christ, but many still reject the light because they love their sin and don’t want to repent.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. (Jhn 3:16-21)

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. (2Co 6:14-7:1)

These are, of course, dynamics that be Emboldened regularly experiences and speaks about concerning personal sin, and the collective sin of churches. But national sin is just as real as personal and church sin, and there is a real gospel in scripture which instructs Christians on how to expose national sin and foster national repentance unto a right relationship between God and our country. The abolitionist movement against slavery is a great example in our history of a time when Christians drew a legitimate line in the sand between light and darkness, and told the people around them that they needed to cross that line, lest God judge our nation for unrepentant national sin.

“Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not within thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed, and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this. And Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer — and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to law, and if I perish, I perish.” Esther IV. 13 — 16.

Respected Friends,

It is because I feel a deep and tender interest in your present and eternal welfare that I am willing thus publicly to address you. Some of you have loved me as a relative, and some have felt bound to me in Christian sympathy, and Gospel fellowship ; and even when compelled by a strong sense of duty, to break those outward bonds of union which bound us together as members of the same community, and members of the same religious denomination, you were generous enough to give me credit, for sincerity as a Christian, though you believed I had been most strangely deceived. I thanked you then for your kindness, and I ask you now, for the sake of former confidence, and former friendship, to read the following pages in the spirit of calm investigation and fervent prayer. It is because you have known me, that I write thus unto you.

But there are other Christian women scattered over the Southern States, of whom a very large number have never seen me, and never heard my name, and feel no personal interest whatever in me. But I feel an interest in you, as branches of the same vine from whose root I daily draw the principle of spiritual vitality — Yes! Sisters in Christ I feel an interest in you, and often has the secret prayer arisen on your behalf, Lord “open thou their eyes that they may see wondrous things out of thy Law” — It is then, because I do feel and do pray for you, that I thus address you upon a subject about which of all others, perhaps you would rather not hear any thing; but, “would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly, and indeed bear with me, for I am jealous over you with godly jealousy.”

Be not afraid then to read my appeal ; it is not written in the heat of passion or prejudice, but in that solemn calmness which is the result of conviction and duty. It is true, I am going to tell you unwelcome truths, but I mean to speak those truths in love, and remember, Solomon says, “faithful are the wounds of a friend.” I do not believe the time has yet come when Christian women “will not endure sound doctrine,” even on the subject of Slavery, if it is spoken to them in tenderness and love, therefore I now address you.

To all of you then, known or unknown, relatives or strangers, (for you are all one in Christ,) I would speak. I have felt for you at this time, when unwelcome light is pouring in upon the world on the subject of slavery; light which even Christians would exclude, if they could, from our country, or at any rate from the southern portion of it, saying, as its rays strike the rock bound coasts of New England and scatter their warmth and radiance over her hills and valleys, and from thence travel onward over the Palisades of the Hudson, and down the soft flowing waters of the Delaware and gild the waves of the Potomac, “hitherto shalt thou come and no further;” I know that even professors of His name who has been emphatically called the “Light of the world” would, if they could, build a wall of adamant around the Southern States whose top might reach unto heaven, in order to shut out the light which is bounding from mountain to mountain and from the hills to the plains and valleys beneath, through the vast extent of our Northern States. But believe me, when I tell you, their attempts will be as utterly fruitless as were the efforts of the builders of Babel; and why? Because moral, like natural light, is so extremely subtle in its nature as to overleap all human barriers, and laugh at the puny efforts of man to control it. All the excuses and palliations of this system must inevitably be swept away, just as other “refuges of lies” have been, by the irresistible torrent of a rectified public opinion.

— Angela Grimke, Appeal the the Christian Women of the South

Let masters give unto their servants that which is just and equal, and all that vast system of unrequited labor would crumble into ruin. Yes, and if they once felt they had no right to the labor of their servants without pay, surely they could not think they had a right to their wives, their children, and their own bodies. Again, how can it be said Paul sanctioned slavery, when, as though to put this matter beyond all doubt, in that black catalogue of sins enumerated in his first epistle to Timothy, he mentions “menstealers,” which word may be translated “slavedealers…”

There is no difference in principle, in Christian ethics, between the despised slavedealer and the Christian who buys slaves from, or sells slaves to him; indeed, if slaves were not wanted by the respectable, the wealthy, and the religious in a community, there would be no slaves in that community, and of course no slave-dealers. It is then the Christians and the honorable men and women of the South, who are the main pillars of this grand temple built to Mammon and to Moloch. It is the most enlightened in every country who are most to blame when any public sin is supported by public opinion, hence Isaiah says, “When the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, (then) I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.” And was it not so? Open the historical records of that age, was not Israel carried into captivity B.C. 721, Judah B.C. 588, and the stout heart of the heathen monarchy not punished until B.C. 536, fifty-two years after Judah’s, and 185 years, after Israel’s captivity, when it was overthrown by Cyrus, king of Persia? Hence, too, the apostle Peter says, “judgment must begin at the house of God.” Surely this would not be the case, if the professors of religion were not most worthy of blame.

But it may be asked, why are they most culpable? I will tell you, my friends, it is because sin is imputed to us just in proportion to the spiritual light we receive. Thus the prophet Amos says, in the name of Jehovah, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” Hear too the doctrine of our Lord on this important subject, “The servant who knew his Lord’s will and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes,” and why? “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.” Oh! then that the Christians of the south would ponder these things in their hearts, and awake to the vast responsibilities which rest upon them at this important crisis.

— Angela Grimke, Appeal the the Christian Women of the South

These are our views and principles—these our designs and measures. With entire confidence in the overruling justice of God, we plant ourselves upon the Declaration of our Independence and the truths of divine revelation as upon the Everlasting Rock.

We shall organize Anti-Slavery Societies, if possible, in every city, town and village, in our
land.

We shall send forth agents to lift up the voice of remonstrance of warning, of entreaty, and
rebuke.

We shall circulate, unsparingly and extensively, anti-slavery tracts and periodicals.

We shall enlist the pulpit and the press in the cause of the suffering and the dumb.

We shall aim at a purification of the churches from all participation in the guilt of slavery.

We shall encourage the labor of freemen rather than that of slaves, by giving a preference
to their productions: and

We shall spare no exertions nor means to bring the whole nation to speedy repentance.

Our trust for victory is solely in God. We may be personally defeated, but our principles never. Truth, Justice, Reason, Humanity, must and will gloriously triumph. Already a host is coming up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, and the prospect before us is full of encouragement.

Submitting this DECLARATION to the candid examination of the people of this country, and of the friends of liberty throughout the world, we hereby affix our signatures to it; pledging ourselves that, under the guidance and by the help of Almighty God we will do all that in us lies, consistently with this Declaration of our principles, to overthrow the most execrable system of slavery that has ever been witnessed upon earth—to deliver our land from its deadliest curse—to wipe out the foulest stain which rests upon our national escutcheon—and to secure to the colored population of the United States all the rights and privileges which belong to them as men, and as Americans—come what may to our persons, our interests, or our reputation—whether we live to witness the triumph of LIBERTY, JUSTICE, and HUMANITY, or perish untimely as martyrs in this great, benevolent, and holy cause.

— William Lloyd Garrison & Signers, Constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society

Christian Unity on Gospel Issues

Of course abolitionists, historically and today, were and are imperfect, sinful people in our own right. We share with other Christian and non-Christian movements the difficulty of determining how much disagreement is possible while keeping the distinctive source of our unity intact. Many people present a list of necessary doctrines (especially gospel doctrines) as the baseline for Christian unity, and this functions well enough in many contexts. But as someone who has lived and worked among a variety of intellectual traditions and communities, I’ve been forced to move in a more elemental direction than a list of primary vs secondary doctrines, to determine with whom I can labor and fellowship. Frankly, I don’t believe such a list exists, in scripture or as derived from biblical principles, except to elevate the proposition “God is true” as the only primary doctrine dividing light from dark.

A defense of an alternative theory of unity will require its own article, but the essential summary of my view is that Christianity changes a person’s fundamental relationship with truth (coming to the light instead of fleeing from it), and the particular doctrines a person believes are always imperfectly downstream from that fundamental commitment. It is a person’s response to truth that reveals his relationship to the body of Christ, rather than the particular content of the truth claims he currently believes. Thus we see Abraham believing God’s word that he would have many children as the foundation of his right standing before God (Gen 15:1-6) — not his belief about the nature of Christ’s work on the cross, or other typical aspects of the biblical gospel, but rather an acknowledgement that God’s word was true — whatever the particular truth claim might be that he was being asked by God to believe.

The elegance of looking at a person’s response to truth (especially when it requires repentance) is that it permits unity in the body of Christ across a whole spectrum of disagreements, even regarding massively important issues. For example, the abolition of national sin is, categorically, a gospel issue, making at least some forms of Christian Nationalism a central part of the Christian faith. Unless evangelicals want to posit that there is an answer to sin apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ, then we are forced to acknowledge that national repentance is an expression of the gospel of Jesus Christ, whatever the doctrinal particulars may be. Yet many evangelical Christians whose walk with the Lord I do not question (such as the women at be Emboldened) will fail to support, and even actively oppose the work to bring nations into a right relationship with God. How can this be possible on such a central issue?

The answer is that we are all at different places in our relationship with objective truth, both in terms of the time allowed for ideological development on a particular issue, and in terms of exposure to different ideas. Even Paul, in his most searing letter rebuking those who were abandoning the true gospel of Christ, acknowledged the erring Galatians to be brothers in Christ (Gal 1:11) who were genuinely indwelt by the Holy Spirit, despite their folly (Gal 3:1-5). He saw a difference in motive and character between the false brothers who were teaching a false gospel, and those who were being deceived by them (Gal 2:4-5, 6:12). By separating a person’s beliefs from his essential response to truth, we can approach a more nuanced and accurate method of determining whether or not that person is in the faith, regardless of the degree of sanctification shown in particular areas of his worldview.

For my part, I was slapped in the face by the abolitionist movement more than a decade ago, after having previously made many of the same kinds of objections against Christianity in politics raised in the be Emboldened video. Yet I wasn’t saved by my exposure to abolitionism and its related doctrines; I was inconsistent in my understanding of the gospel. I responded to that inconsistency with repentance and pursuit of better understanding, showing the genuineness of my love for truth (i.e. love for Jesus). And now, I’m arguably in a better place in my ideology of national sanctification than Christians like those at be Emboldened, despite our mutual commitment to truth. The difference is time and exposure to people with greater clarity on this particular issue, not a fundamental change from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

Because I look at a person’s response to truth to determine unity, rather than the particular content of their current views, I’m therefore able to unify with people from a broad spectrum of beliefs, giving and receiving correction in the context of that unity as we all work toward a greater understanding of the truth (Eph 4:11-16). That isn’t to say that particular beliefs are unimportant — hardly! Such a stance would invalidate the relevance of this entire site, this article, and even this sentence. The content of a person’s belief system matters deeply because there is much damage that can done when key areas of belief are inaccurate, and much good that can be done when we live in alignment with the truth. But such differences don’t need to cause disunity within the body of Christ. They should cause discussion, and an evaluation of how each side of that discussion responds to truth claims that are backed by good reasoning (Act 18:24-28). By focusing on a person’s response to truth, Christians can work out disagreements in unity, even on central gospel issues like the abolition of national sin. Given that all truth comes from God (Jhn 14:6), the legitimate us-vs-them mentality of scripture would thereby center around those who in humility acknowledge God as true, and their own views as being always contingent upon him, versus those who in pride acknowledge their own views to be true, and refuse repentance when those views are shown to be in error (Gen 3:1-5).

To apply this to be Emboldened’s concern about unnecessary division, it can be good and legitimate for Christian Nationalists to draw a line in the sand, and insist that pietistic Christians, NAR Christians, Humanists, and other voices in our day cross that line, that the country may return to a right relationship with God on issues of national sin. But because there is such deception, confusion, and intellectual neglect in this area of Christian theology, it can take a genuine Christian a long time to gain sufficient confidence that the line being drawn is one that God would agree with. To be fair to both sides of the discussion, often it is not. So as time and priority allows, Christians should discuss these matters with each-other in the pursuit of clarity. Then “whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” (Jas 4:17)

be Emboldened and the Brainwashing of Pietism

The really odd thing about evangelical opposition to Christian Nationalism is that it is so contrary to the actual content of the Bible that it’s difficult to understand how such a view could survive for the hundreds of years that it has dominated pietistic/evangelical thought. True enough, certain forms of Christian Nationalism are weird and unbiblical, but the basic idea that civil government is accountable to God is one of the primary doctrines of scripture. It’s all over the Bible.

Yet be Emboldened is not alone in their concerns about Christians trying to bring countries under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Most Christians with a moderate to deep understanding of the Bible seem to hold the same aversion. Despite all of the scripture which speaks to the impact of Christ’s heavenly kingdom on the kingdoms of earth, this bizarrely dominant retreat from politics pervades evangelical thought, and it’s difficult to understand why — if people are reasonably capable at reading scripture and drawing simple conclusions from the text. I don’t mean any disrespect to those like be Emboldened who hold to such a view; as stated above, I myself disregarded politics as unimportant to God through decades of in-depth Bible study, until I was challenged on my view. But it is odd, how blind we all are to the political aspects of the biblical worldview.

Looking back, now that I see how obviously unbiblical it is, it makes me really question how much sway logic versus desire has over the things we humans choose to believe as true. Do we choose our beliefs on the basis of solid observation and reasoning? Or do we choose our beliefs on the basis of what we want to be true?

Perhaps a third dynamic would be the passing of traditions from one generation to the next, the assumption that our spiritual parents knew what they were doing, so we don’t have to vet everything we receive from them. For some reason, even those of us who come out of deeply unbiblical traditions are still often more trusting than you would expect — still accepting ideas uncritically, without going through the hard work of breaking such ideas apart and vetting them for biblical accuracy.

be Emboldened will be better equipped than me to recognize whether or not this fits the technical definition of brainwashing, but something like that seems to be happening within evangelicalism concerning what the Bible teaches about politics. After the Thirty Years War between Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists, a new Christian movement called pietism decided that the whole Christian religion is about the transformation of the inner man through a personal relationship with God in Christ, rather than a comprehensive worldview that applies to all of life (like war and politics). That tradition then became elaborated over time, influential within protestantism, and was passed down to us through evangelicalism, revivalism, and a host of other expressions of Christianity that accepted its reductionism and anti-intellectualism. The upshot is that we inherited a way of seeing the Christian life from our spiritual parents, who were reacting against the trauma of a brutal religious war, and it now creates an invisible filter through which we read the Bible, editing it into conformity when it doesn’t fit with our pietistic assumptions.

We will say and sing the words, “Jesus is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords” because we see those words in scripture, but somehow this translates in the back of our minds into something like, “Jesus is the king of my heart,” or “Jesus is the king of only those people who accept him as their personal Lord and Savior.” Even when we hear Jesus say in the great commission, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” that somehow translates in our mind into “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, except authority possessed by non-Christians, like in politics and business.”

There’s a grid, an interpretive framework that we’ve inherited from our predecessors in the faith, which allows us to read the Bible and gloss over all of the political stuff. We don’t know that we’re doing it, but then when you sit down and stare it in the face, you realize that there’s a massive amount of eisegesis and reductionism going on in the evangelical mind concerning politics and culture.

For example, Naomi from be Emboldened assessed the first vs second coming dichotomy of Christ’s advent as an apolitical vs (presumably) political split between the first and second comings of Christ. This is fairly representative of the divide made by broader evangelical thought, which cleverly allows us to push all of the political content and duty of the biblical worldview to apply only at some future point in time when Jesus returns. Naomi argued,

[Christian Nationalism] can be very similar to what we see in scripture when Jesus came the first time, where people wanted him to do a takeover. They wanted him to just be done with Rome, get rid of it. We had the zealots doing their thing, and Jesus is flipping all of this stuff around, right? And there is something that can…be reminiscient of that. It can be similar to what Jesus said, “no no no” to the first time. Of no, it’s not come in and silence everybody else, or get rid of everybody else, and do this total totalitarian takeover thing. Where then you’re in charge of everybody and everything. That’s not what we’re to do either.

There are a lot of ideas being brought together in that quote, so I’m not fully sure what species of Christian Nationalism is being critiqued. But Naomi’s final statement makes it clear that from her perspective, Christians taking over a nation (even by non-violent means of persuasion) is outside of the scope of what Jesus came to do in his first advent. Yet when you actually look at what the Bible teaches about the first coming of Christ, rather than what pietistic teachers say that the Bible teaches, you see that Jesus absolutely did try to do a political takeover of Jerusalem at his first coming; it’s the very thing that got him crucified (Mat 21-23).

The difference between Jesus’ approach to politics and the world’s approach to politics was not in the timing, but rather in the nature of his bid for political office, and the means he was willing to employ to acquire it. Simply put, Jesus presented himself as the heir to the throne of David, and gave Jerusalem the opportunity to accept or reject his kingship, knowing all along that they would reject and crucify him.

Don’t miss the significance of that. At the centerpiece of human history — at the very heart of the gospel narrative, Jesus so orchestrated his life that he would be running for earthly, political office in the very week that he provided his payment for sin on the cross. Yet not only will evangelicals neglect the political aspects of the biblical worldview — you will hear modern evangelical pastors go so far as to mock the political involvement of Christians as if only unlearned, carnally-minded believers would take up such a ridiculous and useless task that is clearly a distraction from the mission of the gospel. For the evangelical mind, all that matters to Jesus is the eternal salvation of individual souls, the payment for sin, the new birth. All of that government stuff is just an afterthought that gets resolved at the second coming.

No, the truth is that evangelicals are selective in the scriptures that they use to support their anti-political mindset. Jesus did decline kingship for a time, because of the means through which the people wanted to make him king, namely unjustified violence (Jhn 6:15). Yet it was no more anti-political for Jesus to refuse unethical kingship when the people offered it, than when Satan offered it to him during his 40-day fast (Luk 4:5-8). In both cases, Jesus was being asked to take political power through immoral means. The contrast being put forward in the gospels is not a contrast between politics and Christianity, but rather a contrast between worldly politics and Christian politics. When Jesus presented himself as the king of Israel, he refused to compromise with sin as he engaged with the existing political establishments. Therefore he drove the moneychangers out of the temple, rather than seek the favor of the Sanhedrin, valuing justice and the approval of God above the pragmatism and approval of men. It got him crucified, and from the perspective of the world, he therefore lost the election and any hope of achieving his political goals. Yet from the perspective of Heaven, Jesus showed himself worthy of a higher kingdom, one which possesses authority over both the heavens and the earth, and whose impact would far surpass that of the Sanhedrin or the even the throne of David.

Some will argue that the heavenly nature of Jesus’ kingdom shows him to be unconcerned with earthly politics (Jhn 18:36), but this fails to recognize the authority that heaven possesses over the earth. We don’t have a dualistic universe where earth and heaven never meet. Rather, the earth is under the authority and jurisdiction of heaven as a vassal state (Dan 4:17). This is why the kings of the earth are given a gospel message which includes repentance for their misuse of delegated civil authority.

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”

He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill…”

Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. (Psa 2:1-6, 10-12)

Like every other human being on the planet, civil rulers in this age are to live consistently with the expectation of future judgement at the throne of Christ. That includes a use of their civil authority in a way which aligns with the will of Christ Jesus, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. They are to punish evil and reward good (Rom 13:1-5), show mercy to the oppressed (Dan 4:27), etc.

Despite these truths, the evangelical church today will arbitrarily cut civil rulers out of the group of people to whom the great commission applies, because we have this filter that stops us from seeing them in scripture. We can speak with normal people about their normal sin issues, but anyone with the added capacity to sin through an unlawful use of civil authority is beyond the gospel message of the Church. Somehow we can’t see all of the times that John the Baptist, Jesus, and the apostles rebuked the civil rulers of their countries as an outworking of their Christian ministries, because we ascribe only religious authority to the Sanhedrin without acknowledging that they also possessed civil authority. Then the myriad of other references to civil government throughout the scriptures are handwaved away through whatever theological gymnastics are required to reach the end goal of stripping politics out of the Bible.

No, the reality is that in an ultimate sense, whatever our earthly government structures may be, everyone does actually live in a theocracy, whether we like it or not. Earth is accountable to heaven, and the rulers of the earth need to submit to the lordship of Jesus the king of heaven, lest he be angry and they perish in the way. And the Church needs to warn them about the judgement they face. We need a fresh brainwashing, through the water of the word of the God of Siloam, to wash away the mud of pietism that has blinded our eyes. Lord, that we would see wondrous things in your law.

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be Emboldened and the Pretended Neutrality Fallacy

A final aspect of the be Emboldened video worth discussing is more of an issue with underlying assumptions that seem to be in the backdrop of be Emboldened’s worldview, rather than a problem in particular points they made. It seems as if there’s a belief that civil government is capable of operating from an irreligious standpoint, as a neutral mediator between various religious positions within the country. For example, Lindsey expressed the following concern.

One of the things in seminary that we talked about in some of my classes was that we should take things to their most logical conclusion. So if we’re talking about the extreme version of Christian Nationalism, and what that logical conclusion would be, it would be getting rid of everybody else. It would be, Christianity is the religion, and if you are not with us, you do not belong here, and you should leave… In the milder version, it is [that] we have certain beliefs as Christians, and we believe that they are good for a functioning society. And we would like to influence policy so that these things don’t happen in our country.

In this quote, Lindsey postures two forms of Christian Nationalism — one which seeks to replace the current system of religious pluralism with a Christian system (the “extreme” theocratic version), versus one which operates within religious pluralism to promote Christian laws (the “milder” theonomic version). Lindsey’s concern about the more extreme form of Christian Nationalism seems to be that the country would move from having no state religion to now having Christianity as the state religion, and that this would lead to the mass expulsion of non-Christians from the country, or at least their removal from political life, and that this would be a bad thing. Two things need to be addressed regarding this assessment.

  1. Our country already has a state religion (religious pluralism), and state religion is an inescapable reality. It is never a question of if religion will impact politics, but rather which religion will serve as its foundation.
  2. Though I argue that lesser forms of Christian Nationalism are biblically acceptable to God, a strong Christian state as described above cannot be inherently wrong.

On the second point, while I don’t believe that an exclusionary Christian state is the necessary end result of pursuing biblical Christian Nationalism, I do think it’s important to grant legitimacy to those who would pursue this more extreme end. It is the kind of theocracy which God himself enacted in the nation of Israel (enforcement of a single religion among the people), and it’s the eventual end of all countries (Psa 22:27-28), so it cannot be inherently immoral. If it’s a problem for Gentiles to so commit to the God of Israel in this age of history, that problem has to come from a direction other than the intrinsic immorality of enforced theocratic Christianity. Dynamics such as the lack of God’s initiation of a theocratic covenant with Gentile states is sometimes cited, etc.

The first and more important point is that the religious pluralism of modern America is not religious neutrality. It is a state religion in its own right, one in which Christians are able to somewhat compete, but which ultimately deifies the state as God, demanding that Christians and others align themselves and their religions with its own moral and religious categories. The typical example of this in Christian history would be Roman pluralism, where a multitude of religions were held together by the strength of the Roman state. This allowed various religions to somewhat collaborate together in civilization, but it is often forgotten that despite its tolerance of other religions, Rome proffered its own state religion which governed all others, and which demanded a pinch of incense to Caesar, a demand which came into conflict with any religion (like Christianity) which would not grant such ultimate authority to the state.

The problem with relying on pluralism to solve the problem of religion is that you don’t magically get rid of state religion by adopting pluralism; religion is inevitable in every discipline of man. Rather, you elevate a form of humanism to rule all the other religions, where the state becomes the ultimate authority (i.e. god) of the system, defining through its own autonomous authority (or that of the people, or other human source of legal opinion) the extent to which other religions are permitted to practice their beliefs within its jurisdiction. Then Christianity and other religions conflict with and are constrained by this humanistic religion of state, to the extent that they differ from it in their views, especially regarding morality.

For example, at this stage of history, American pluralism would likely constrain Molech worship, which sacrifices born children to the god of Molech, as it would similarly constrain violent jihad in fundamentalist Islam. This is because in its pluralistic law code, America still has vestiges of a Christian view of murder, on account of our Christian history, and it therefore governs religions under its jurisdiction in a way which enforces compliance to that aspect of Christian morality. Conversely, to the extent that America’s law code is now influenced by sexual liberation humanism, Christians are forced into compliance with e.g. pro-sodomy laws that require Christian adoption agencies to give children to sodomite partners, etc. The ever-changing opinion of the divine state is perceived to be the ultimate arbiter between other religions within the jurisdiction (as opposed to e.g. the scriptures being sovereign over a Christian state), so our faith in pluralism is necessarily a religious choice of the nation, rather than an irreligious one.

The point is that all civil law is inescapably religious, even in pluralism, because law as a concept necessarily rests upon a system of morality and authority, concepts which belong to the overlapping fields of religion and philosophy. For democratic pluralism, authority rests in the expressed will of the people (humanism). For a Christian state, authority rests in the old and new testament scriptures (or the more fundamental Logos expressed in creation). For a muslim state, it rests in the quran, etc. The question is never if religion will be involved in the creation and enforcement of laws, but rather which religion(s) will be involved in the creation and enforcement of laws, and what the ultimate authority (god) of that religion is. Thus an intellectually honest discussion of state religion requires that we evaluate the competing religions themselves, to see which religion will best serve as the religion of state. From a Christian standpoint, where we believe in the existence and desirablity of objective truth, the ideal state religion will be the true religion (Christianity), because truth expresses itself in desirable attributes.

Concerning the attribute of tolerance, some religions, like pluralism and Christianity, are able to tolerate the presence of other religions to a degree when they control a given state and its jurisdiction. The structure of the problem is more easily seen in a smaller authority structure like family, where e.g. the parents might be Christian, and the children humanists, on account of a secular education or some other cause. In such a case, the parents will set rules for their household in keeping with their own view of morality and proper governance, grounded in a Christian philosophy of family and law, which constrain the behavior of the children while they are under the jurisdiction of the parents. But the parents’ Christianity doesn’t automatically obligate them to expel their humanistic children from the family unit (though they may have options like that, to deal with major expressions of sin, e.g. Deu 21:18-21). For the Christian, this tolerance of other religions flows out of the tolerance that God has for other religions that surface under his dominion; he waits for them to bear harmful fruit before bringing punishment.

In the inverse case, where the authorities are pluralistic, and some or all of the constituents are Christian, the tolerance of Christianity etc. is subject to the current and fluctuating opinions and tolerance of the god of the pluralistic system, whether Caesar or the aggregate vote of the people. Christianity can function within such a system, and hold it accountable through the proclamation of God’s word and (as needed) principled civil disobedience. This is the milder form of Christian Nationalism (competing within religious pluralism rather than trying to replace it) that is often viewed by evangelicals as the good and safe intersection of religion and politics, when their feet are held to the fire and they can’t fall back on their pietism. In my own read of scripture, I do believe it to be a legitimate and biblically-acceptable expression of theonomy, which is what God requires of us. Converting rulers in a pluralistic system to enact justice under God resolves the post-flood demands that God places on Gentile governments to establish man-to-man justice (Gen 9:6), even if the core religion of state never bows the knee to God (man-to-God justice), such as what happened with Nebuchadnezzar’s personal repentance apart from theocratic reformation (Dan 4). But pluralism shouldn’t be seen as ideal, for anyone with a reasonably biblical eschatology. The situation is analogous to Israel being governed by Persia — we have categories for how to live there, but it isn’t God’s good design for those who love him, and it isn’t an enduring form of government in the long-term.

Whatever form of Christian Nationalism is pursued, Christians need to stop buying into the lie that pluralism is religious neutrality. It is not; it is an expression of Secular Humanism which makes decisions about governance on the basis of a foundational religion/philosophy of law which comes into conflict at times with Christianity. In the case of democratic pluralism, the will of the majority is enshrined as that which is good, whereas Christianity would view things as objectively good or bad independent of how many people agree. These systems are in conflict at the core of their philosophical commitments, and in terms of the fruit, one has only to look at the indoctrination going on in the state church of public education to recognize that pluralism and humanism are deeply religious, deeply evangelistic, and deeply exclusive of other religious views that conflict with their agendas. The question is never if the state will have a religion at the foundation of its law and work, but which religion will serve as the foundation.

As hinted at above, and elaborated elsewhere on this site, I see multiple legitimate avenues through which Christianity can faithfully engage with civil government. My current understanding is summarized as follows:

  • Christians call people and collectives to repent and return to God as the foundation of their lives. When this occurs with individual civil rulers, or with institutions that possess collective civil authority, sanctification of that ruler produces an increasing tendency to exercise authority over the relevant jurisdiction in keeping with God’s word. Personal salvation of the ruler is not necessary to foster some good use of civil authority, but it is the more impactful change than mere conversion of individual policies, on account of its total transformation of the whole person (leading to Spirit-initiated policy changes).
  • God’s word teaches theonomy, that civil rulers (Christian or otherwise) will be judged by God by how they exercise authority. This judgement ultimately occurs in the resurrection, but temporal judgement against a ruler and his jurisdiction may also occur in response to rampant sin.
  • Post-flood civil governments are obligated by God to punish second-table-of-the-law (human-to-human) crimes, and are subject to his judgement when they fail to punish murder.
  • Civil governments may optionally enter into theocratic covenants, which have two forms:
    • The government’s official religion is Christianity, meaning that the philosophy it uses to make decisions about authority is enforced as Christian. But the people under its jurisdiction are still governed exclusively by second-table-of-the-law legislation, with a tolerance for the presence and continued influence of other religions. So the state religion is enforced for the government, but not for the people.
    • The government’s official religion is Christianity, and first-table-of-the-law (God-to-human) crimes are enforced alongside second-table-of-the-law legislation, by obligating the religion of the people to match the religion of the state.
  • The Church and State remain distinct institutions that check each-other without any crossover of authority, though crossover of personnel is morally permissible if the spheres of authority are kept distinct, e.g. with a pastor possessing civil authority, but not using it as an extension of his church authority, and vice versa. Regulations separating personnel are also fine, if desired, just not morally binding.
  • Like in pluralism and other religions of state, theocracy (of the government or of the people) should enforce only obedience to the source of authority in the religion, which in the case of protestant Christianity would be enforcement of adherence to old and new testament scriptures, rather than particular Christian traditions that interpret those scriptures. Cases can be raised against traditions on the claim that they obviously deviate from the scriptures, but tolerance can be exercised in areas of less clarity, at the discretion of judges.
  • Done well, theocracies that include enforced religion should have more longevity than autonomous states, since love of a neighbor breaks down when love of God doesn’t serve as its foundation. But we are not presently obligated to them, on account of an argument God is making to humanity at this stage of redemptive history, regarding the destructive nature of human autonomy brought though the fall, and man’s need for submission to God.
    • To create a new theocracy, consent of the people involved seems to be required, due to the covenantal nature of the change.
    • In the case of America, this would involve either ratification of a new constitution, or significant amendment of the current one.
    • Until we get our theonomic duties in order (abolition of key national sins), and experience mass conversions of people to Christ, theocracy is prohibitively unlikely to succeed, and should probably be avoided for a generation or two. But starting work to move America in that direction is fine, such as clarifying the relevant theological categories.

be Emboldened’s Aversion to Christian Nationalism

The impact of Christianity on civil government isn’t a new question, but it’s an area of Christian thought that remains poorly developed in some regards, due to modern neglect of historic intellectual accomplishments in the area, as well as the pietistic stranglehold that prevents us from thinking deeply about these issues. For my part, I would much rather avoid the discussion altogether, due to all of the contention in the field, and my own lack of interest in it. But I am a citizen of a country, and as such I need to know how my Lord and Savior would have me interact with that country and its civil authorities.

be Emboldened is right to have concerns about many of the answers being thrown around Christianity today. Most have deep biblical problems, and begin with man’s wisdom rather than God’s word. But just because there are bad solutions in a field of study, it doesn’t mean that the whole field should be avoided. We should always remember that pietism’s avoidance of political theory has been deeply harmful in its own right, with pietism credited as a key contributing factor to the rise of rationalism and humanism throughout the west, including its progeny of marxism and the french revolution.

We can’t avoid politics as Christians, and we can’t consider our duty done when the American ballot is cast. God calls nations to repent of collective sin, and he expects his people to carry that message into the halls of power as much we carry it to the streets. Christianity has a long history of bringing nations to their knees before the true and the living God through the proclamation of his unadulterated word. So rather than continue to unravel that history, we should reconstruct what has been lost in western civilization by diligently studying God’s word to the nations, then preaching and implementing it like our forefathers, with courage and without apology (though certainly with apologetics :-)).

Separation of Church and State

Does the separation of Church and State mean that civil government is unaccountable to God?

Religion and philosophy are essentially two names for the same field of thought — the study of first principles. One might argue that religion covers a broader spectrum of knowledge, but the point remains that every human discipline rests on first principles, and therefore every human discipline is inescapably religious.

Civil law in particular rests on an understanding of morality, which can differ substantially from one religion to the next. Law as a concept defines right and wrong ways of behaving, with positive and negative consequences for compliance or rebellion. But when humans issue law, this raises a question of what grants a human the right to demand obedience from other humans. Is law justified merely by the power of a ruler to enforce it? Or is law justified by authority vested in a ruler from an outside source?

The law of the fittest (rex lex) versus the law of the accountable (lex rex) reflects a long-standing conflict between two religious worldviews in western civilization. The law of the fittest views morality as a mere product of meaningless evolution, grounded in the will of the powerful man (or powerful collective man, i.e. society) who can define morality without accountability to a higher power. Because morality is a product of the powerful man rather than a ruler who presides over him, acts like rape and murder may be considered moral so long as the powerful man approves of them. Such a problem is often dealt with in the modern day by spreading the legal power of society across its members, such as in a democracy. But this merely pushes the ethical problem onto the collective rather than the individual sovereign. As long as societal consensus approves of an atrocity, such as what happened with chattel slavery, the gladiatorial games, abortion, or wife burning, the atrocious act becomes moral by definition, since morality is a mere opinion of the fittest man, which in the case of democracy is the collective man.

In contrast to rex lex, authority delegated to man from an unchanging and personal source that lives outside of the natural world (theism) provides the philosophical justification for viewing both the individual human and his civilization as accountable to higher moral categories. For lex rex, because rulers receive authority from God, and are accountable to his higher moral law, they have the right to issue laws and commands only within the boundaries of morality. When such leaders rule immorally, those underneath of their authority have a philosophical foundation other than revolutionary power to justify a limited and measured exercise of civil disobedience.

Other religions may perhaps yield other expressions of civil law beyond what the west has experienced in its conflict between naturalism and theism. But the point remains that one’s view of religion necessarily drives one’s view of politics, because every human discipline rests upon a religious foundation to establish the prerequisite first principles of knowledge.

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SHADE Theory

SHADE Theory offers a biblical foundation for Christian involvement in politics.

All authority in heaven and on earth comes from God, and has been vested in his vice-regent, Jesus the Christ. Because heaven reigns over earth, and Jesus ascended to the throne of heaven after his death and resurrection, the kings of the earth owe obedience to Jesus, and will be judged by him for their submission or rebellion to his rule.

Human beings are given the prerogative to define law codes for their derivative authority structures, such as in civil law*, parental rules, company policy, or church tradition, etc. Because all authority comes from God, these law codes are accountable to the higher moral law of Christ. Laws which conform to ultimate morality are considered legitimate and binding, and laws which are immoral may be lawfully opposed.

The law of Moses is a unique form of civil law which was given by God for the people of Israel. Unlike other laws, Moses is created in the image and likeness of the law of Christ as a shadow covenant that reveals the nature of ultimate morality and the kingdom of heaven. While Gentile (non-Jewish) nations are not under the authority of Moses in the present age, Jewish law is still instructive as a source of applied principles. It provides us with an inerrant, God-given example of how the law of Christ is reflected in a particular people and their civil law code, revealing principles which may be adapted to other peoples and contexts.

* In the context of SHADE Theory and Biblical Polity, civil law is meant in the older sense of describing the total body of legislation produced by a civil government, such as a nation, province, or county, etc. Thus it includes criminal law, as opposed to some modern definitions which distinguish between the two.

Because the covenant of Moses is a shadow of the covenant of Christ, the Bible describes two parallel culminations to redemptive history. The millennium-long reign of Jesus on the earth brings Israel’s history to its climactic golden age, and it serves as a shadow of the greater hope shared by all of redeemed humanity — the eternal state without sin, sorrow, or death.

Christians who believe in a dual-climax of redemptive history are often criticized for being pessimistic in their outlook for the future before Christ’s return, and the reputation is well-earned. Because on this view Christ’s millennium is preceded by severe global judgement, it is often preached that civilization-building efforts like political improvement are ultimately pointless, and that only the salvation of individual souls is important to God. Reconstructionist ideologies are therefore left to optimistic postmillennialism, which operates under the belief that we are presently living in the millennial reign of Christ, and that civilization will improve over time until Jesus returns.

SHADE Theory recognizes a form of hopeful realism which acknowledges both the futility and the deep value of life under the sun. Learning from Solomon’s insights in ecclesiastes, and Paul’s reflections on life without resurrection, we can see that civilization truly is made futile by the judgement of death issued against Adam’s race, if we do not factor resurrection into our political theory. Yet God is still deeply interested in the way in which man’s temporary civilization is carried out, if for no other reason than that the preservation of life by civil government allows the gospel to be preached and accepted by mankind. Other reasons for godly law and civilization may of course be supplied, such as the convicting of consciences in preparation for the gospel, and the training of Christians to be faithful and skilled in government matters, for when we are made rulers with Christ over the heavens and the earth.

The nature or timing of the millennium should have little impact on the hope of the Christian, or her obedience to the dominion mandate that God gave to build and rebuild civilization on earth. We face the same philosophical problem as Noah before the flood, or Jeremiah before God’s judgement of Judah through Babylon. All of humanity has always faced the inevitability of personal and collective judgement, yet civilization-building has always been an important part of man’s purpose here on the earth. If a penultimate judgement and reconstruction of the earth is yet in our future, then like every other generation that has faced judgement in the past, we are still called to be obedient and faithful stewards of the present.

One of the recurring effects of the Christian worldview on civil government is the criminalization of grave social evils, such as abortion, infanticide, witchcraft, wife-burning, and the gladiatorial games, to name a few. Observing this, the abolitionists of slavery in Britain and America developed a theology of national sanctification to compete with secular alternatives of their day, and grounded their movement on “the truths of divine revelation as upon the Everlasting Rock.”

Abolitionism holds that the only answer to sin — whether personal or national — is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that only the people of God are equipped to bring that gospel into conflict with sinful and oppressive people and institutions. Ideologies of social change which unite Christians with non-Christians in an effort to curtail sinful law or behavior are fundamentally compromised and self-defeating, because non-Christians are by nature devoted to a false gospel that does not submit to God or his Messiah.

Furthermore, Christians are often tricked into supporting legislative change which compromises with sin, or which delays the introduction of uncompromising legislation, through the claim that it will be a more practical stepping stone toward justice. Abolitionism holds that every law that is written must be uncompromisingly moral — without sin, partiality, or injustice of any kind — and that any attempt to delay national repentance for any pragmatic reason is also a sinful use of legislation or other power.

The drive to pragmatically set aside God’s word in the legislative process is rooted in a false gospel which relies on man alone to redeem himself without the help of God. Abolitionism holds that God is our greatest ally in the work to bring about national repentance and redemption — that he is a real person and force acting behind the course of man’s civilization, and that we cannot set aside his word or his gospel without dooming our efforts to futility.

The counterpart to abolition is reconstruction. Where abolition involves turning from sin, reconstruction involves turning to a new way of life — God’s way rather than Satan’s.

SHADE Theory espouses a methodology of dual-mandate reconstruction which sees two dominion mandates in scripture — one given to Adam and Eve to take physical dominion over the earth, and another given to Christ and the Church to take spiritual dominion over the heavens and the earth. On this view, all humans in good standing within a given earthly jurisdiction participate together in earthly civilization-building under the authority and judgement of God, on account of the image of God that we bear through Adam. This includes efforts like business, family, civil government, and science, etc. All Christians in good standing with heavenly government then participate together in building the kingdom of Heaven under the authority and judgement of God, on account of the image of God that we bear in the new man through Christ. This includes efforts such as charity, evangelism, church, and theology, etc.

These two mandates do not describe the comprehensive scope of earthly or heavenly duty; both civil and moral law are broader than commandments pursuant of earthly and heavenly civilization-building. Some Christians make the mistake of believing that the great commission (the heavenly dominion mandate) is the sum total of the Church’s responsibility, and that all legitimate church activity must come under it, to the exclusion of e.g. social change. This is an unbiblical and destructive tradition that supplants the great commandment as the first and foundational law to guide human and Christian behavior. We are commanded to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love those who are created in his image and likeness — our neighbors as ourselves. On these two commandments hang all of earthly and heavenly law and civilization. The dominion mandates, while important, are merely one of the ways in which we carry out the command to love God and neighbor in earthly and heavenly government.

Because all authority comes from God, all authority is delegated authority. This means that no human being, human institution, or other creation possesses authority in its own right. Rather, one is accountable to use his authority in compliance with all higher directives and law codes, up to and including God’s higher moral law.

When a person or institution commands something in contradiction to one of its own superiors (including God), a lesser authority has both the right and the duty to disregard that command, and honor the higher authority. This is known as interposition, where the lesser authority stands between a tyrant and those underneath of him, to prevent their lawless oppression. While such a lesser authority may be accused of disregarding the rule of law, he is actually honoring the rule of law, by checking a lawless tyrant who is himself issuing commands in opposition to higher law.

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