I Was A Christian Nationalist
Notebooks Project #4 Early January 2000
01-11-00
Prerevival. I believe the Lord is doing something great in this country & it is beginning soon. For the decade: Lord. He is pressing us into His presence so that He might become our Lord. He is showing us what that means.
01-12-00
I can’t explain it. I can’t deny it. God is calling me to intercede but I feel like I’m falling away. Something is weakening me. I feel as though I’ve remained humble to my calling but Lord if I haven’t call me back to the drunkie’s lifestyle for the Spirit. I want to love you but apathy has a grip on me. Help.
01-13-00
Oh I really need help. I am catching up on my studies but falling out of love w/God. Help me to love you Lord. Let me Love You. I MUST LOVE YOU TO SURVIVE!
I Was A Christian Nationalist
I believe the Lord is doing something great in this country & it is beginning soon.
I was a Christian Nationalist before it was uncool.
Except, we never called it “Christian Nationalism.” I just was taught that the U.S. was founded on Christian principles, and I should want everyone in my country to be Christian.
This was one of the parts of Evangelicalism that I always had quiet reservations about because I believed the U.S. is a place of religious freedom. Many Evangelicals said the same. And it never made sense to me that, if we have religious freedom, how one religion could officially dominate the others in public institutions. This was a matter of fairness to me, and it didn’t sit right then and it does not sit right now. And the rise of Christian Nationalism in the 2020s has provided many examples of this unfairness. The unfairness of requiring the posting the Ten Commandments but not other law codes that have influenced American law. The unfairness of forcing teachers to teach the Bible in schools but not other religious and spiritual texts that have influenced American culture.
The answers I often got from Evangelicals to address this unfairness were two-fold. One made some kind of sense. The other did not.
It’s not fair to prevent people from practicing their faith in their public life. Religious freedom means you can engage in public life as a member of your religion. You can vote based on your faith. You can advocate for policy based on your faith.
It’s only fair for Christianity to dominate public life, since the founders were Christian. Plus, Christianity is the one true religion. It wouldn’t be fair to deceive people into allowing them to believe false religions.
You can guess which one was more persuasive.
It made sense to me that, in a community where most people were Christians, that local public life might involve open discussions of religion when discussing policy. The town council scene in Footloose is a good example.
Kevin Bacon’s character makes appeals to Christian Scripture because he knows his audience might find it persuasive. And that made some kind of sense, and still does now.
But a quarter of a century later, the reservations I had as a kid have developed considerably. I’m not a Christian Nationalist anymore—not even close. But I do think that the issue is more complex than a lot of secular folks make it out to be. On the one hand, I don’t think we should pass and enforce laws based on anyone’s interpretation of any scriptures. Because that’s theocracy—rule by God, or at least, rule by someone’s interpretation of God’s will. But I do still think people should be able to advocate for policy based on their religious beliefs. If a political candidate advocates for a policy, and that policy aligns with your religious beliefs, I think it’s fine for your faith to influence the way you vote.
Admittedly, this is a contradiction, and one I have not completely resolved. How can it be fine to advocate for policy based on your faith but not to compel others to adopt tenets of your faith through law? If advocacy for a law is shaped and justified by faith perspectives, in what way would its enforcement not be, in some way, forcing people to adhere to those faith perspectives? The go-to example of this theocratic abuse of democracy is the conservative Evangelical Christian appeal to Scripture to defend their anti-abortion policy. And secular folks find this abhorrent in a pluralistic society, because it is, on its face, enforcing religious views as law.
What I think many secular folks neglect is the shoe being on the other foot. Many liberal Christians appeal to the teachings of Jesus to justify their support for social safety net policies—I know because, for a time in grad school, I was one of them. I was a member of a liberal church, and I was involved in social justice activism through working in the church’s ministry with a local food bank and homeless shelter and helping with the local census count of the homeless. I did all of these things motivated by my belief in the teachings of Jesus. As a student journalist, I even wrote a human interest piece about this ministry in our school newspaper.
If Evangelical Christians took some parts of Scripture more seriously, I think they’d admit there’s even a socialist thread throughout the New Testament. Jesus tells the rich young man to sell all he has and give to the poor (Matthew 19:20). The early church “had all things in common” (Acts 2:44)—the Amplified translation clarifies: “considering their possessions to belong to the group as a whole.”
But if liberal Christians invoked these Scriptures to justify social safety net policies, one could easily see this as enforcing religious views as law—a kind of social democratic theocracy. And what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. So if liberal Christians can do it, why can’t conservative ones?
What I think many Evangelical Christians supporting Christian Nationalism miss is the big picture of the American experiment. A nation founded on religious freedom necessarily admits to tolerance of multiple cultures. We’re trying to create a multicultural society where we can live together, and that can only happen through consensus. But for law to reflect consensus, we can’t use law to compel people who don’t believe or who adhere to a different faith to observe religious tenets of our own preference.
And so the closest I’ve come to resolving the contradiction that began so many years ago is to recognize that any law that is supported by religious conviction by its adherents must also appeal to the rational faculties of anyone who does not share that religious conviction. That is to say, you may be motivated to support a law by religious belief, but in order for the law to be accepted in a pluralistic society, it must make sense to anyone who doesn’t believe what you believe. Otherwise, your advocacy is reminiscent of the theocratic tyranny of 17th century Europe that motivated religious minorities to seek refuge in the land of the free1.
The counterargument I often heard from Evangelicals is, “Yeah, but we’re right. We have the right beliefs, so we should be able to enforce them.” And I just can’t help you there. If you’re so certain that you’re right that you want to compel others through law to observe your own religious tenets, then I guess the world actually is as small as your worldview. No other views matter—just yours, because you’re right.
My worldview is drawn from my experience. I’ve been around the world. I’ve met people of many different faiths in many different places. I take long walks in the parks of Boston with a Buddhist. I shared shisha in a souq with a Muslim in Qatar. I’ve celebrated Hannukah with friends in the cold, New England winter and in sunny California. And I just wouldn’t compel any of them to do or not do something because of my faith. Because I respect their individual right to practice faith as they see fit.
Revival Is About World Domination
Prerevival.
When I was an Evangelical Christian, I wanted revival. The forces of secularism had been shrinking the role of Christianity in American life for too long. And it was our turn now to take over.
Revival is a mass event where many Evangelical Christians believe that God’s presence comes down and so deeply affects a community that mass conversions take place. Evangelical Christian revival has historically happened several times in North America, such as the Great Awakenings. In more modern times, the Evangelical revivals include the Azusa Street outpouring, the Toronto Blessing, and the Brownsville Revival. I wrote about the most recent revival at Asbury.
Revivals were incredibly compelling to me in Evangelicalism because they often involved seemingly endless worship services. And as I wrote in a previous Notebooks Project entry, those worship services were incredible to experience.
At its largest scale, theoretically, revival could mean the entire world becomes Christian. And in this way, revival is a mechanism for world domination. Because in the Evangelical worldview, Christians are right. So everyone should be Christian. And the Bible says, in the end, every knee shall bow (Philippians 2:10).
My January 11 entry is a testament to this hope, this belief in the possibility of revival affecting the entire U.S. It was something I prayed for many, many times. I wanted it so bad. I think part of my motivation was that I didn’t want to be so alone. Being an zealous Evangelical Christian in a public school was a minority position, even in the rural, Christian community I grew up in. And I thought it would be amazing if all my friends were Evangelical Christians as zealous as me. I wanted my whole school to convert. I remember canvasing my campus and praying for blessing and protection and revival at my school.
I do not think this culture of revival and the desire for mass conversion is unique to Evangelicals. I think it’s very human to want everyone to think like you do, at least on some issues. And we use “revival” colloquially to refer to similar phenomenon. A revival of an old play or musical necessarily means a lot of people start talking about and sharing similar ideas and words. A revival of an old fashion means mass conversion of dress styles for many people. So there are certainly ways in which revival is benign, even good.
But the revival that Christian Nationalism advocates for is, indeed, something I’m concerned about. It’s not the “Christian” part; it’s the “Nationalist” part. I do not want Christianity to take over my government because then my government will no longer represent me and a host of other people who do not adhere to the faith. The government will not rule by the consent of the governed. And Americans of all people have stark reminders of what happens when Christianity dominates government—the graves in Salem an hour north of where I’m sitting here in Boston testify as a silent warning.
And I do hope that in the current trial we face, reason prevails in the end.
Random Notes
The desire to “intercede” is a reference to “intercessory prayer,” which is when you pray on the behalf of someone else, especially for recovery from illness or suffering. I wanted to pray more. Common theme.
These entries are more rumination about my fear of falling out of love with God. Classic OCD.
“Drunkie’s lifestyle for the Spirit.” Yeah, I wonder if my teacher was alarmed I was abusing alcohol here. This is kind of hard to explain—all of it is—but there’s a metaphor within Evangelical, and especially Charismatic, Christianity where you compare your relationship with the Holy Spirit to that of being a drunk. You can “get drunk on the Spirit.” It just means that you’re so enamored with the Spirit of God, so out of control of yourself that God just uses you as His instrument. It’s kind of an ideal state of mind, something like religious ecstasy. Getting “drunk on the Spirit” happens a lot in worship services. It can produce many fruits: getting a “word” from God, speaking in tongues, dancing, incomprehensible and seemingly involuntary body movements, “holy laughter,” etc. Outside the context of a worship service, it would be cause for alarm, evidence of mental instability. If it happens at church, you’re fine. I don’t think that’s unique to Evangelical Christianity. If I was dribbling a basketball and throwing it a random hoops while at the library, people would find that pretty strange too.
“I MUST LOVE YOU TO SURVIVE.” My word, I was a dramatic little shit. I can’t tell if that’s teenage drama, fervent belief, or OCD. Probably all of the above. Anyway, it reads as a bit unhinged to me now, but I remember that all teenagers are a little crazy. Comes with the territory.
I do try to write very carefully about Evangelical Christians. I try not to overgeneralize—every group of humans has diversity of perspective. And I’m starting to blur the lines between Charismatic Christianity, a smaller sect, and Evangelical Christianity, a much larger sect. I may need to clarify that a bit as I work through all of these notebooks. I also try not to construct strawmen of their arguments, but if you think I am, please tell me. I am not interested in lying, bullshitting, or misrepresenting anything. I want to form strong arguments, and I would like to improve and clarify my own views—or even change them if the evidence warrants it. And I would never want to hurt Evangelical Christians; they are family and friends, and I love them even if I am critical of their beliefs—because they were my beliefs at one time too.
Even if I’m not constructing strawmen, it’s clear at this point that these posts can devolve into an argument with my past self and with imaginary Evangelicals I have in my head. I don’t know if I like that, but it is what it is for now.
This is a pretty gross oversimplification of religious minorities colonizing indigenous land, and I’m aware of it, but I’m trading off accuracy for a rhetorical point here—and I beg your indulgence.
Michael, I'm going to respond to a couple of your responses at the same time, because in my mind, they overlap.
Biblical revival means believers recognizing their sin, their loss of interest in spiritual things, their sliding toward attitudes more in line with "the world" than with God's kingdom, their hypocrisy in expecting others to live according to their moral code while having hearts of stone. And then having a true change of heart that makes them more likely to read the scripture for what they can learn than for what they can read into it, more likely to pray, more likely to show compassion for others, in short - more likely to reflect the character of Jesus in their lives.
Historically, true revivals have often resulted in social reform, including the growth of anti-slavery movements, the movements to put children in schools instead of factories, the building of hospitals that treated the poor as well as the rich. But such things weren't "revival," per say, just the result of revived individuals recognizing their responsibility to love their neighbors as themselves.
The "Christian Nationalist" vision of revival is all about changing externals, nothing about changing our own hearts. It's a false religion, many of whose leaders are immune to compassion, more interested in enforcing their worldview on others than having hearts that reflect the character of Jesus. I pray daily that God's spirit would bring them to repentance and true service of Christ.