Christian Nationalism Pt. 1

[00:00:08] Speaker A: Welcome to that's a Good Question, a podcast where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. If you or someone you know has questions, please submit them at peacechurch cc. Questions? Hey, welcome to that's a Good Question. Excited today to get to talk about a very important topic here in the new year, a topic that's been talked about a lot over the last five years. It's been used as a derogatory label by some. It's been owned as a badge of honor by others. And that topic is Christian nationalism. [00:00:45] Speaker B: Let's do it. [00:00:46] Speaker A: Can be quite a conversation. [00:00:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:48] Speaker A: I imagine some people listening are, you know, very familiar with hearing that term. Others are maybe not so familiar. It really came into popularity in the last five years, largely used. You hear people on the news referring people derogatorily, negatively as a Christian nationalist or sometimes as a white Christian nationalist. And then, like I said, there's some that have now taken on this label and said, yeah, I am that, and I'm proud of it. [00:01:17] Speaker B: Right. [00:01:18] Speaker A: And so the question now I think of, after five years of this thing being around, being discussed, talked about it, we're gonna ask the question, what is it? What does the Bible say about it? [00:01:29] Speaker B: Yeah. My first thing to add is just, I think that there's probably a good chunk of people listening that go, well, I know I've been called one. [00:01:38] Speaker A: Sure. [00:01:38] Speaker B: I don't know what it is still. You know, I think there's a lot of people that love Jesus and love America. Yeah. And so what does it mean for those two priorities to live together in my life? And then what does it mean for a bunch of us to live together in society? For those of us that love Jesus and love America? What does that look like? And is Christian nationalism it? So that's like the question that people are asking. So I think, yeah, I don't know what it is, but I know I've been called it. I think there's a lot of people's perspective. [00:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, let's start. Let's start with that. What is Christian nationalism? [00:02:13] Speaker B: I'm asking you, John. [00:02:14] Speaker A: You're asking me. Okay. All right. What is it? Yeah, it's a good question. Well, it's one of those things, you know, language develops over time. Right. So this is one of those terms that has developed. And I think one of the things we'll talk about is that people have very different definitions of what it is. People use it in very different ways. I would say, from my, you know, following the conversation and reading there is not one central unified definition of what it is. [00:02:39] Speaker B: That's a fact. [00:02:40] Speaker A: So I think there's basically two extremes we could talk about, and then there's plenty of positions in between. But I think the two extremes that I would lay out are on the one side, some people will say that anybody who says that America was founded upon Christian principles, was founded as a Christian nation, that that person is a Christian nationalist. [00:03:01] Speaker B: Yes. [00:03:02] Speaker A: So I think that's, that's, that's on one side, that's a very wide sort of application of the label that. That includes a lot of people. And then on the other side, I think you could very narrowly or more narrowly define a Christian nationalist as somebody who desires a return to, like, pre enlightenment Christendom, like 16th century. Yeah, yeah. Medieval Europe. Blending of church and state. [00:03:30] Speaker B: Right. [00:03:31] Speaker A: All the way up to the point of where, you know, the state would even punish heretics. You know, you'd, like, burn people at the stake for having the. The wrong beliefs that was enforced by the state. [00:03:39] Speaker B: And I think oftentimes people will not make the distinction between Christian nationalism and white Christian nationalism. And I think that's problematic because one includes the word white and one doesn't. Sure. There's people that are more on the line of, well, I love Jesus. I want faith to be more involved in politics and maybe even flirts with the. Maybe there shouldn't be separation of church and state, but they have no ethnic mindset going into it. But then they can get dubbed a white Christian nationalist and sure feel like, well, you're missing representing me. [00:04:11] Speaker A: But why, then? [00:04:12] Speaker B: That's why Christian nationalists would say this is actually ethnically drawn lines that we should care about and we should. We should keep ethnicities separate from each other. And it's like, that's very. It's. I mean, I don't want to get too much into our thoughts before we lay definitions, but the white Christian nationalism part is the, the ethnic opinions. You know, we should draw these lines and keep them separate and is at odds with the Christian part. [00:04:38] Speaker A: Right. [00:04:38] Speaker B: The eternal vision is of all tongues and all nations worshiping the king together. [00:04:43] Speaker A: Right. [00:04:43] Speaker B: And so I think that there's. [00:04:45] Speaker A: Well, this is. This is an important. I think this is an important part of defining our terms. So, you know, that's what we're trying to do. And it's going to take us a minute to try to define the terms here, but Christian and nationalist. I think, you know, if you've been listening to this podcast while you know what a Christian is. Right. Somebody who knows Jesus As Lord and Savior follows him, believes the Bible. A nationalist. What is that? And it is another one of those things that there's. There's differing definitions and people might disagree about exactly what it is, but some of it comes down to just what you're saying about whether or not you include ethnicity as part of defining even what a nationalist is before you even bring in the Christian part. [00:05:23] Speaker B: What is a nation? [00:05:25] Speaker A: Right, right. So. So like here's, here's Oxford English Dictionary's definition of a nationalist. It says, or nationalism. It's identification with one own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations. Okay, so it's just saying prioritizing your nation as opposed to others, which, you know, as long as you're not like, vilifying other nations, I think that makes sense. Right. To say that I prioritize the people who are closest to me, like an American first. [00:05:53] Speaker B: Well, mindset. Yeah. [00:05:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And I even. So this was, you know, a big discussion. What was that? A couple years ago, when Our vice president, J.D. vance, talked about what's called the ordo amoris, the order of loves, you know, and said, you know, it's a Christian idea that we prioritize first, like our family and then our, you know, our next layer out, our neighbors and then our community and then our nation, you know, that just, it's kind of. There's an order of priority. You know, it doesn't mean that we hate the people outside of those circles or further out, but it just means that, you know, as human beings, we have priorities. Yeah, you have priorities. And you, you're. We're called to prioritize just the people closest to us. You know, I'm supposed to take care of my own family. [00:06:29] Speaker B: Yep. [00:06:30] Speaker A: I am supposed to love my neighbor and care about them as well. But, you know, you gotta. I start with my own family. And then it moves out a layer, and then it moves out another layer. [00:06:37] Speaker B: I think in your wise to say, like, let's frame this conversation by talking about the extremes, because knowing where the ditches are helps, you know, where the road is. And on this part of nationalism, there are some extremes that would say, yeah, nationalism, I'm America first, like my country first because I have priorities. But then some people will take it. America only. Sure. Or America first and Israel last, or something like that where it's like, well, yeah. [00:07:00] Speaker A: Or to your point of the white part, they'd say, you know, America first and specifically white. [00:07:05] Speaker B: That's what the nation that's the nation is the white people or black people. You know, like, there's this. Every. There's in the world. There are extreme views all across the board. Yeah. Like, we could. We could spend hours talking about ways to misunderstand scripture and misapply it and live in the ditch and. We don't want to live in the ditches. Want to live on the road and be on the road. Yeah. [00:07:29] Speaker A: Yeah. So one of the things that we're saying is racism bad. [00:07:34] Speaker B: Yes. [00:07:35] Speaker A: That's. You know, there's a good starting point. [00:07:37] Speaker B: For our custom, and I have to be even more precise, because the term race is a newer word, at least in terms of ancient Christian thought. Right. The word race wasn't even a concept, but there were. There were different people groups and tongues and things. What the Bible would say, is partialism bad, like favoritism bad. [00:07:55] Speaker A: Sure. [00:07:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So when you're defining a nation. Yeah. You know, this could be a huge conversation, but when you're defining a nation, I think it makes more sense to talk about shared culture and values. [00:08:07] Speaker B: Yes. [00:08:07] Speaker A: Not make it about the color of your skin or something like that. [00:08:11] Speaker B: Not make it about things that people can't change about themselves. [00:08:14] Speaker A: Right. [00:08:15] Speaker B: This is just intrinsically part of my body where I'm from. I didn't choose to be born where I'm born. Right. [00:08:22] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean. Yeah. And as I think about, like, the American project, to go back to the American founding and, you know, we're. We're a nation, you know, I think, unique in the history of the world, but we're a nation, you know, really built upon ideas that we have a set of values and principles that make America. I think historically, you know, the view has been, you know, anybody who wants to be a part of that project, come on in and join us. But that's the point, is that you have to want to be a part of that project. You have to. You have to say, I believe in these principles and ideas that make America America, and I want to be part of that. [00:08:55] Speaker B: Yeah. It's not wrong to expect and desire forms of assimilation into the nation you're immigrating to. In fact, it's impossible to not think that and still keep the nation intact. Right. It's. There are boundary lines around ideas and values, and that's where the identities are. [00:09:19] Speaker A: I think I said this recently. I forget where this was. I think we did. We did an event where I was answering some live questions and somebody asked about the culture thing. And I. And I said, you know, one of the ways that we know this is even, you know, think about like your workplace, you know, in your workplace. In a, in a healthy workplace at least. So like for example, even here, here at the church, when we bring on new employees, we try to do some teaching and training, explain. This is who we are. Yeah. This is how we operate. These are our, these are our goals, this is our vision, you know, and just say, you know, we're happy to have you come and be part of this, but you got to embrace, you know, the direction we're headed. [00:09:53] Speaker B: So we're describing what nation is and different ways to conceive of it. What would an alternative to be to nationalism in its soft form? Right. We're saying like nationalism as in shared values and ideas. And it's like, no, that's good. [00:10:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:08] Speaker B: That's how we should conceive of a nation. What are the alternatives to being a nationalist in that sense? [00:10:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:15] Speaker B: Where's the second ditch at? [00:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah. My answer would be the other ditch is globalism. [00:10:20] Speaker B: Right. [00:10:21] Speaker A: Which the Bible pretty universally says is bad. You know, Genesis and Revelation both give us big pictures, big warning, tales of globalism. You know, the Tower of Babel, Genesis 11, bad. You know, humanity united. I think what we see is in a very short story, humanity, United States under sin is always going to go the wrong direction. You know, we can't be. You can't have a united humanity, a globalist humanity until Jesus returns and sin is wiped out and then we live underneath King Jesus. [00:10:56] Speaker B: Not to get too patriotic too early, but that's one thing that's beautiful about the American experiment is that it's this value of liberty in terms of wanting to limit the government's strong arm, like the government should have a strong arm and in what its purpose is, which is to protect its citizens and promote general welfare. Yeah. And promote or protect God given rights. Right. That's the American's conception. And there's a limiting factor inherent within it because it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be this globalist power or seeking that power. [00:11:28] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. I mean the founders were very aware of, I mean they're really building off of a Reformed Christian understanding. Not all of them were distinctly Reformed Christians, but they're building off of a Reformed Christian understanding of humanity and, and sin. And you know, that's why we have, you know, words like checks and balances, separation of powers, those ideas built into our government because they knew that too much power concentrated is going to lead to tyranny. And so they were, they were trying to limit in people the government in people, in people. [00:11:59] Speaker B: In principle, let's give all the power to God. [00:12:04] Speaker A: Sure. Right, yeah, definitely. [00:12:06] Speaker B: That's like the whole. The fear of a theocracy and things where it's like, you Christian nationalists, you just want this to be a theocracy. And it's like, oh, geez, that's a can of worms. Because one, I don't even know what you mean by Christian nationalist. And two, I'm not trying to have a theocracy because I know that people are going to ruin it if we had it right. That's what you see in the Old Testament is God is king and yet they can't do it. They can't follow him well, they can't rule. [00:12:32] Speaker A: Well, until Jesus comes back and, you know, our sinful nature is no more. We're fully sanctify, you know, that's. That's when that can work. [00:12:41] Speaker B: What's the verse that says, we're citizens of heaven. [00:12:45] Speaker A: All of them. [00:12:46] Speaker B: There's a specific one, I think, in Philippians, that says it. And I've always pushed back a little bit about that idea because I've always thought, well, no, I'm a citizen of the new heaven, new earth, because that's the eternal vision. And I always, as a pastor want to push back against the idea of like, yeah, the eternal vision is that we'll float around in heaven. It's like, no, no, no, no. Eternal vision is very solid. We're here on earth, just without sin. But citizens of heaven. That is a biblical phrase. And I've had to come to terms with like, I am a citizen of heaven because the new heaven and new Earth isn't here yet. We're in a situation where the what will be isn't now. And so there is an ideal that we can't have right now. And that ideal is that God is our king, fully on earth, reigning. But we can't have that right now. [00:13:35] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. So it's like so because. [00:13:38] Speaker B: Because of sinful humanity. [00:13:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So Augustine's like two cities. We're part of, you know, the City of God and the city of man at the same time. We're citizens in two kingdoms at the same time. Until Jesus returns and those become one, we're living in the already. Not yet is another way that reformed theology says it. Right. It's already true that Jesus is king, and yet it's not yet true that he's, you know, he's descended upon the earth and that, you know, everything has been remade and glorified and he's here. [00:14:03] Speaker B: On the earth and it's him ruling theocracy in a sense. Right. It's like him in power can totally. We can't have that right now. We can't because we're still sinful. The world is still sinful. So that's the ideal. We know we can't have it, but we will. And so in the middle, in the already, but not yet, what does it look? How do we order society? How do we do this? [00:14:23] Speaker A: That's the question. [00:14:24] Speaker B: And Christian nationalism has been tossed around as a good idea. And like we've already said, a problem with this whole conversation is there is no shared definition of what that means. [00:14:33] Speaker A: Right? Yep, totally. So that was, so. That was a long, you know, so we went. We went down a long journey there. And so again, hopefully you're tracking with us. And see on the one side, some are calling anybody who would say anything similar to what we just said Christian nationalists. You know, anybody who would say that Christianity ought to have an impact on our politics or that we have a historical, you know, historically, America has Christian principles, those sort of things. They would say that those people are Christian nationalists. I would say, no, that's not a label that I want to own or anything like that. But again, mostly because it's just so unclear. [00:15:06] Speaker B: There is. Is it a movement? Like, is it. Or is there. Is it a movement or is there like an actual institutional backing to it? [00:15:15] Speaker A: Like right now, it's more like just a. Just an idea. It's largely being talked about on the. [00:15:19] Speaker B: Internet in any way. It's not fleshed out in any way. [00:15:22] Speaker A: Well, so there's some people that have taken some shots. So Stephen Wolf's book the Case for Christian Nationalism, which I'm in the middle of reading right now, some great reviews have been written on it. Kevin DeYoung's review is a great one. I'm trying to remember exactly what it's called. The Rise of Right Wing Wokeism, I think is the. The title of his book review for it. So that's a pretty strong title. That's his review of it. [00:15:43] Speaker B: Oh, geez. So we can get into so many different. [00:15:45] Speaker A: There's so much stuff you could get into with this, but it's not. [00:15:50] Speaker B: It's not. There's no institutional backing. It's not fully. It's not tangible. There is no, like, here are the six points of. Or the D9 points. Or like, here are the three values of. There isn't like anything. [00:16:00] Speaker A: No, this is an idea that people are working out. And so I Think the conversation we want to have is to say, all right, we've kind of talked about how ambiguous it is, what it is. We've talked about the different, you know, ways that people try to throw the word around, either pro or con. [00:16:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:16] Speaker A: I think we kind of want our conversation to be about, you know, what do Christians actually believe about the relationship between our. Our faith and our. Our nation and our politics. Yep, That's. [00:16:26] Speaker B: That's kind of political theology. What's. What. What is really exciting about the time we're in and the term Christian nationalism is we're in a time that is on the cusp of a lot of change. And I think maybe the Internet has something to do with that. But, like, fads have never come and gone so fast. I feel like. Like things just change so fast. I think the. Within a decade, even we have seen, like, I think maybe this is just one example, but the legalization of gay marriage in America to within 10 years. It's like, and if you don't have this sexual ethic, you're a bigot. Where it's like, whoa, there's so much cultural waters shifting and ground shaking. We live in a. [00:17:10] Speaker A: Let's talk about that for a minute. So you're. I mean, you're kind of bringing up the historical background of how did we get to the point where people are advocating for Christian nationalism? Right. Is that kind of. [00:17:17] Speaker B: My second point was. So we live on this. We live on. We do. We all feel it. We live on the cusp of a lot of change, and we're excited about that, but also scared about that. What's exciting about the words, the phrase Christian nationalism, the term is. I like both of those ideas. I like talking about Christianity, and I like thinking about what direction is our nation gonna go in. And so political theology is the point of this. I think a lot of people wanna talk about it. Yeah, that's my point, is that we all feel things are moving and changing and shifting, and that means that things could go in a different direction one way or. Yeah. Or maybe third. You know, tons of different directions, and people want to talk about it. The church wants to talk about it. I think that's exciting. And so we want to be, as a helpful resource, dig into some of this political theology. [00:18:03] Speaker A: Right, right, exactly. Political theology. Trying to figure out what does the Bible say about how Christians, how our. How our faith, how the Bible impacts politics, impacts our relationship to the country. [00:18:14] Speaker B: I have two questions for you, but it sounded like you had a question. [00:18:16] Speaker A: You're going to no, I'll go ahead. [00:18:17] Speaker B: Okay. Well, you mentioned, you mentioned two big questions people ask is, did our countries in America, United States of America, did that have a Christian founding? Because sometimes people get dubbed a Christian nationalist just by thinking that. Right. And then second question, how should Christians navigate these waters? [00:18:38] Speaker A: Sure. [00:18:39] Speaker B: And what does Christian nationalists? Are those. Is that a good term or what. What. What is a biblical worldview to have? And. [00:18:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I actually got to teach a class, I think it was about a year ago, maybe two years ago now, called Christianity Politics. I think you can find those classes online. But one of the sessions I did was called Are We a Christian Nation? And so I said, basically, when you're asking that question, you could mean a few different things. I said, you could mean at least three different options. And I explored each of them. I said, you know, one, are we a Christian nation? Yeah, are we a Christian nation? And says, you know, one way you could view that is meaning that we are a majority Christian, which is true. You know, surveys show us that a majority of people at least call themselves Christians in America. [00:19:21] Speaker B: So there's. [00:19:21] Speaker A: So there's that. Okay. Another way to say it would be saying that we're a Christian nation, meaning that we have a Christian history, that we're founded on Christian values and principles. Or third, when you say that we're a Christian nation, you could mean that you think that we are or should be a. A state that has a national religion of Christianity. I think those are the three options. And basically what I said in the class is I think, number one, statistically tells us is true. You know, at least people say, a majority of people say that they're Christian. Number two, it's true that we have a Christian history. And I can go into that further. Number three, should we establish Christianity as a state religion? No, is my answer to that one. [00:19:59] Speaker B: I think historically that's what the intention was. You have settlers and pilgrims and Puritans and stuff leaving a Christian nation. Right. I mean, the King of England is the head of the Church of England. [00:20:13] Speaker A: Right, Right. [00:20:14] Speaker B: They're leaving that. Interestingly, I read a little bit trying to prepare for this, but interestingly, I do think there were ideas in the founders of America that we would think, oh, that is. That's a little bit too far. And yet they were fleeing from someone that they thought was going too far in terms of how much power does the government have in church affairs and how much influence does the church have in government affairs? I think they were clearly running from that. And yet I Don't think the founders had as much of a separation as sometimes our modern inclinations would have us believe. [00:20:56] Speaker A: Right. So when you're thinking about, you know, the founding period and where was. Where was America at in terms of the relationship between Christianity and our politics? Yes. The Declaration of Independence. Yes. The Constitution, Yes. The Bill of Rights are all really important, you know, looking at the First Amendment, of course, but you've also got to remember that, you know, we're the United States. We were made up of 13 states, or originally colonies. And so if you want to look at the American founding and what was the thought stream of those guys, you got to go back a little bit further, dig a little bit deeper, and look at the state constitutions, look at the charters of the colonies, look at those kind of things. And when you look at that, you realize the. That what people say today about separation of church and state is totally different from what people said in 1776 or. [00:21:39] Speaker B: 1789 when, you know, that can't be understated. We. We think so. We think we're so smart. Sure. In modern times. [00:21:47] Speaker A: And, yeah, I mean, just. I mean, I, I think in the class, I shared a lot of different data, but, you know, all 13 states or colonies required a declaration of faith in order to serve in government. In the state, nine of the 13 specifically required a Protestant Christian declaration of faith in order to serve in government. And yet they all embraced the First Amendment, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. [00:22:15] Speaker B: Well, at the federal level, they embraced the Constitution, which said there shouldn't be an establishment of a church. Is that in the First Amendment or elsewhere in the Constitution? [00:22:23] Speaker A: We call that the establishment clause of the First Amendment. [00:22:26] Speaker B: Well, yeah, then they embraced that, and yet that wasn't contrary to what they were doing at the state level, because it's. It's a federal amendment. Right. It's the federal church that they didn't want, but they had no issue with the state church. [00:22:41] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. [00:22:42] Speaker B: So it's not that they were dumb. Right, right. The C.S. lewis quote of, like, we're the snobbery. [00:22:48] Speaker A: Chronological snobbery. [00:22:49] Speaker B: Yeah. It's like we. And we assume what they think, and we assume they're on our side. And I just think that they. We might use some of the same terms sometimes, but they had a different, you know, framework for how the church interacts with the state. They were clearly running from an abuse of the church. Abuse of the state in church affairs. Right. And yet they didn't have an outright separation. [00:23:10] Speaker A: Well, to go back to what you were saying, earlier of the two ditches on either side of the road, I think so, you know, they were running from a ditch on one side which was a full. A full entanglement of church and state in a way that became, you know, very unhealthy and that they were fleeing from. [00:23:24] Speaker B: And they wanted a separation of that. [00:23:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:26] Speaker B: A divide between the two. Two cities type of thing. [00:23:29] Speaker A: Yeah. But on the other side, there's a ditch in which I would say that we're in now, which is secularism is the. Is the ism you'd give to it, which is to say that Christianity or faith or. Or Bible has no relationship or should have no influence or impact on the state. [00:23:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:45] Speaker A: And that's not where the founders were at. You know, that's the ditch on the other side of the road. You know, I think it's. It's, you know, it's. To them, I think it would have been crazy for to say, you know, that Christian influence or the idea of God and moral principles coming from Christianity should have no impact on our laws or how we govern. You know, I think that would have been a pretty wild idea. [00:24:09] Speaker B: Wild. [00:24:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:10] Speaker B: It's that John Adams. The Constitution. The United States Constitution is made for a moral people, a religious people, a. [00:24:19] Speaker A: Moral and religious people and no other. Yeah. [00:24:21] Speaker B: It's unfit for any other. Right. [00:24:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:24] Speaker B: Okay, so historically speaking, that's that question. And then what about how should we respond now? What is good Christian political theology, Biblical way forward, especially in our trying times? [00:24:36] Speaker A: Yeah. A big question, lots to say. I actually. [00:24:40] Speaker B: Is this all an intro? This. Everything prior to this, Was the intro to the episode kind of. [00:24:46] Speaker A: No. Well, I mean, we can always, you know, come back to this topic. We've talked about it a little bit here and there at different points. I'm excited that we're really going to, you know, nail down on Christian nationalism in these episodes. But actually also got to say that, you know, here in the new year, here in 2026, we have coming out a resource called Should Christians Get Involved in Politics? Just a short tract that I wrote that is going to be available in print at the church, but available online for anybody to get access to. So I'll get into that a little bit further there. But, you know, the short answer is, you know, there is a real danger of making an idol out of our nation or an idol out of politics. But on the flip side, Jesus is lord of all Biblical truth, is. Is truth. And we have to apply biblical truth to all of our lives. You know, we can't we can't say sort of I follow Jesus in this part of my life, but that part over there is politics. And so I have to check my, you know, following of Jesus at the door. You just can't do that. And one of the key passages I would point us, there's, there's many. But one of the key passages I would look at is Jeremiah 29. Think about when Israel is in exile, living in Babylon, and God speaks to them and says, you're supposed to be there and you're supposed to work for the good of the city. You're supposed to, you know, work for the, the welfare, the well being, the good of the people around you, your neighbors. You know, you're not supposed to just live in a holy huddle and totally separate yourself and have nothing to do with them. You're supposed to be part of it and work for their good. And so what does that mean? That means bringing, you know, God, your understanding of God's design for justice and for what's good and best for human beings. You're supposed to bring that out into the public square, you know, so as Christians, we want to advocate for laws that are best for people, which is, which means they're going to align with God's word. Right. Because God is the creator, the designer. And so we want, yeah, we want laws and things that align with God's word because we know that's what's best for human beings. [00:26:43] Speaker B: It's true. It's right. It's good, it's just. Yeah. Which is what we're after. And that points to how there needs to be some shared values in our nation. That's problematic when we don't have that. Right. And that's, that kind of, that's one angle of why the waters are so shifty and the ground is so shaky right now is because we don't have that. We have a lot of different worldviews clashing. [00:27:06] Speaker A: One of the ways that I've thought about it, and this isn't a perfect analogy, and I'm not, I'm not an IT guy. So, so maybe the IT guys would yell at me for this analogy. But I thought about it like, you know, there's the operating system on your computer and then you run programs on that operating system. So to me, it's almost like this. [00:27:19] Speaker B: I like this. [00:27:20] Speaker A: It's almost like, you know, that our, you know, what we have as a form of government is a constitutional representative republic. And the constitutional representative republic form of government was designed as a program to run on the operating system of Christian principles. That's the way I see it. And so when you are trying to run this program without the underlying operating system, things start to fall apart. And I think that's a lot of. [00:27:43] Speaker B: What we're seeing, some of that. And we're seeing like a. A. An attempt to change some of what we are in order to make that work. And that's why people have revolutionary sentiments on either. All across the political spectrum, because they're like, something's not working. You either need to make it something new to make it work, or you need to reform a little bit about what it is or try to Christian evangelism. Reform the people. [00:28:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:11] Speaker B: So ultimately, I think we would both come down on, well, we're pastors. And so as much as we can talk about government and politics, at the end of the day, what we're gonna care most about is preaching the gospel to people. [00:28:21] Speaker A: Right. [00:28:21] Speaker B: Because that's what the calling we have, and I think the calling every Christian should have in some degree is preaching the gospel is the most important thing we could be doing. That's not to say there aren't people called to government. There certainly is. We. We should want Christians involved in government. But at the end of the day of all this political talk, we're gonna come down on that like, we need to actually reform the people totally. As much as all the revolutionary talk or talk of reforming or going back to retrieving what America is supposed to be, it's like, yes, government, politics does matter, but reforming the people is another side of that. And every Christian's called to doing that. [00:28:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think what you're saying is getting towards the heart of the debate here is that, you know, we've already said that We're. We're saying we're Christians, we love our nation. By the way, I've thought about a label, by the way. I think better than Christian nationalism. I sort of think I am a Christian and a patriot. I love Jesus and I want to follow him, and I love my nation. [00:29:17] Speaker B: I think most people better. I think most people would say, yeah, yeah, that's what I want. [00:29:22] Speaker A: I think that's a better label, personally. So that's why I don't jump on the label of Christian nationalist or anything like that. But so we, you know, we've said that, you know, we love Jesus and we think. And, you know, God's truth is public truth. We want to bring it into the public square and use it for the good of other human beings. So then the question is how do we do that? And, you know, in the debate within Christian nationalism is, does that involve establishing a state church? Which, of course, is not what the First Amendment, you know, tells us. So that whole conversation of how exactly does that work out is kind of the. The conversation. [00:29:59] Speaker B: You say state church, you mean like a federal church? [00:30:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And establish. Yeah. Yes. Established church for the United States of America. [00:30:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:06] Speaker A: Right. [00:30:07] Speaker B: I think that the question is this whole separation of church and state thing. The question is, well, should the church just kind of bow down to whatever the government says? Absolutely not. The church should have a backbone and fight for what God has instituted the church for. And also the government should not back down and should passionately pursue what God instituted the government for. And so I think what we want to get into next episode is what does the Bible say about the role of government in the role of church? Get more into the weeds on that. I do think we should end this episode by saying, so are we a Christian? Am I a Christian nationalist? Should you be a Christian nationalist? And I think there's a lot of wisdom in. There's some big names out there, big names in our circles at least, like Doug Wilson, Kevin DeYoung. I'd love for them to sit down, but they probably won't. But I appreciate Doug Wilson, and he's one of those guys that says, I am. And here's how. And it's like, I appreciate the way he reads the Bible and gets into the weeds. He's, like, unafraid to get in the weeds. And there's some disagreement there as well. Kevin DeYoung would say I'm not one, but I probably could be if it was defined. Right. And right now it's not defined. Well, I think there's wisdom in looking at this and saying, oh, man, there's flavors of this that I like, and there's flavors of this that I think are wholly unbiblical. So what do you do with this? [00:31:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I think what I would say is that some people might call me that, but I would certainly not call. [00:31:37] Speaker B: Myself that because I think there's. Of what the Kevin DeYoung mind is, I think is really wise. Yeah, I'm not, but I could be. But as it stands, I can't be. Yeah. Because there's. If I use that term, people are going to think I'm trying to say something that I am certainly not sure. Yeah. [00:31:54] Speaker A: I'm a Christian who loves my nation and wants to see Christian truth have a big impact on my nation as. [00:32:00] Speaker B: Much as it's nice. [00:32:01] Speaker A: You can call me whatever you want to call me. [00:32:03] Speaker B: We all want to have clear labels. That's nice to have. But more than that, we should want precision of language and clarity of what we believe. And what you just said, I think is the most clear statement we can, we can make. [00:32:18] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, I'm excited for the next episode. Get to take a step further, talk about it a little bit deeper. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Have an awesome week. [00:32:25] Speaker B: That.