From October 26,2023:
The Trinity Forum has an excellent podcast you can listen to on The Challenge Of Christian Nationalism. Good discussion on the difference between Christian Patriotism and Christian Nationalism. Search on You Tube. It’s worth a listen if you have given much thought to issues of policalization of religion or attempts at limiting freedom of religion by government.
From September 27,2023:
I am a Christian and a Patriot, in that order. I am not a Nationalist Christian. Two Christian theologians discuss the difference (from The Trinity Forum. ttf.org) The podcast is worth a listen.
Mark Noll: Let’s …..”distinguish between responsible Christian patriotism and what might be called damaging or destructive Christian nationalism. Responsible Christian patriots love their country, but also realize that God’s standards of right and wrong must apply to my country as well as to all the countries of the world. In contrast, Christian nationalists are often those who love their country right or wrong, and refuse to allow any criticism of its history. Responsible Christian patriots try to show how Christianity can be a service to the nation; extreme nationalists make Christianity a servant of the nation. Maybe a contrast can make the distinction even sharper. Responsible Christian patriotism expresses confident loyalty, along with the capacity for self-criticism. Damaging or destructive Christian nationalism expresses fearful loyalty with a compulsion to demonize opponents. But then it’s really important to make a contextual statement that these are polar opposites with a lot of ambiguous gray areas in between, particularly because, ……Christian nationalists are really not a sharply focused thing, but a series of loosely defined ideological positions.
Vincent Bacote: Let me add one thing to that in terms of just a short way to sort of illustrate that. If you think about the cross: patriotism, rightly construed from a Christian point of view, will put the flag at the foot of the cross. Christian nationalism wants to drape the [flag] over them. So is God serving your country, the sponsor of your country, or are you, as a Christian, operating wherever you are and having loyalty, but not your primary loyalty to your country over God?”
From February 25, 2021-
Below is an email solicitation I received from Dr Carol Swain, for whom I have great respect. This paragraph in particular caught my attention:
“We owe it to our children to stand up when their teachers are telling them to be ashamed and guilty of who they are. None of that is possible unless we honestly teach them what it means to be an American.”
One observation I would extend ……. the tact to take here is not an appeal to patriotism, nationalism, or what it means to be an American. Rather, it is the plain truth that each and every one of us, of every color, shape, size,age, nation of birth and any other physical demographic aspect, are first and foremost beloved children of God who created each of us as unique and worthy beings. But advocacy for the spiritual dignity and worth of individuals before God has become so un-cool in our world today, so politically incorrect and socially shamed that it seems easier to appeal to patriotism and populism rather than get dismissed as a religious nut. It’s appealing to a widely held value of people with shared history and traditions that can be sniped at from globalist elites as narrow minded, xenophobic, and outdated……when the real thing at risk is a rarely embraced virtue of the universality of human worth to God and sanctity of human life.