When Nationalism Overrides the Gospel
The problem begins when national identity becomes a more meaningful category of belonging than Christian identity.
There is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the phrase “Christian Nationalist.”
The problem is not that a Christian happens to be born in a particular country, speaks its language, appreciates its culture, or possesses its citizenship. None of those things is inherently incompatible with following Christ.
The problem begins when national identity becomes a more meaningful category of belonging than Christian identity.
Consider a simple scenario.
Two people stand before you.
One was born on the other side of a national border. He has a different passport, speaks a different language, and belongs to a different nation.
But he confesses Jesus Christ, follows Him, and considers you his brother.
The other person was born in the same country as you. He carries the same passport, speaks your language, shares your national history, and considers himself one of your countrymen.
But he does not follow Christ.
Now ask the Christian nationalist a simple question:
Which of these two people is more truly “your own”?
If the answer is the fellow Christian, then nationality has been placed beneath Christian brotherhood.
But if the answer is the fellow national—simply because you share a country—then something much more serious has happened.
The categories of nationalism have overridden the categories of the gospel.
The New Testament gives Christians a different people
The New Testament does not teach Christians to construct their primary identity around the political nation into which they happened to be born.
Peter says to Christians:
1 Peter 2:9“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession.”
And then he says something even more significant:
1 Peter 2:10“Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.”
The Christian has become part of a new people.
Paul describes believers as:
Ephesians 2:19“fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household.”
And he says:
Philippians 3:20“Our citizenship is in heaven.”
These are not merely statements about what happens after death.
They describe the Christian’s present identity.
The follower of Christ has an earthly nationality, but his nationality does not define his ultimate peoplehood.
He has an earthly citizenship, but his earthly citizenship does not define his ultimate citizenship.
He has a homeland in which he was born, but that homeland does not become his ultimate homeland simply because he was born there.
The gospel destroys the national boundary as a boundary between God’s people
Paul tells the Galatians:
Galatians 3:28“There is neither Jew nor Greek… for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Notice what Paul does not say.
He does not say that Jews and Greeks must cease to have different cultures, languages, or earthly identities.
He says that these distinctions no longer determine their standing in Christ.
A Jew does not have a superior spiritual relationship to another believer because he was born Jewish.
A Greek does not become spiritually inferior because he was born Greek.
Why?
Because Christ created a people whose defining characteristic is no longer ethnicity.
The same principle applies to every subsequent national division.
- Ukrainian and American.
- American and Mexican.
- Russian and Ukrainian.
- German and Polish.
- Canadian and American.
These distinctions may describe earthly circumstances.
They cannot define the boundaries of Christ’s family.
This exposes the fundamental inversion
The gospel establishes a radically different order of belonging:
Christ first.
His people as family.
All humanity as neighbor.
Nationalism reverses the second category:
Nation first.
Nation as family.
Everyone else as foreign.
And when nationalism becomes Christian nationalism, the danger is not that Christianity becomes too Christian.
It is that Christian language is attached to a system whose fundamental category of belonging is something other than Christ.
The question therefore is not:
“Can a Christian love his country?”
Of course he can.
The more important question is:
“What makes someone my own?”
If the answer is Christ, then a Christian in another country can be closer to me than an unbeliever standing next to me.
If the answer is nationality, then a stranger who rejects Christ can become “my own” while a brother who follows Christ can remain a “foreigner.”
That is precisely where nationalism has begun to compete with the gospel.
“But Paul was Jewish”
Someone may object:
“But Paul identified himself as an Israelite.”
Certainly.
Paul could describe his ancestry, ethnicity, and earthly background.
But notice what Paul does with those distinctions.
He considers the privileges he once regarded as grounds for confidence to be loss compared with knowing Christ (Philippians 3:7–8).
His ethnic identity did not disappear from history.
It simply ceased to be his ultimate source of righteousness, belonging, and boasting.
That is the difference between having an identity and making that identity supreme.
A Christian can say:
“I was born American.”
Without saying:
“Americans are my people in the ultimate sense.”
He can say:
“Ukraine is the land where I was born.”
Without saying:
“Ukraine is my covenantal nation.”
He can love the people around him without making their shared nationality the boundary of his deepest allegiance.
The Christian’s brother is not determined at the border
There is something profoundly strange about allowing a political boundary to determine whether another human being is considered “one of us.”
Imagine two Christians standing on opposite sides of a border.
Nothing about their relationship to Christ changes when the border is crossed.
Yet nationalism can create a conceptual transformation:
Before the border:
brother.
After the border:
foreigner.
The gospel does not work that way.
The kingdom of Christ does not stop at a customs checkpoint.
The household of God does not end where a national border begins.
The blood of Christ does not recognize passports.
And the command to love one’s brothers and sisters does not contain a national exception.
Therefore, the real question is one of allegiance
A Christian may possess a nationality.
A Christian may participate in civic life.
A Christian may serve his neighbors.
A Christian may appreciate his country’s history and culture.
A Christian may even have legitimate reasons for preferring one political arrangement over another.
None of that establishes Christian nationalism.
The decisive question is:
What defines “us”?
If “us” ultimately means:
people born within this territory,
then nationality has become a fundamental category of identity.
If “us” means:
people who belong to Christ,
then nationality has been subordinated to the gospel.
And that is why the phrase “Christian Nationalist” deserves serious scrutiny.
It joins two concepts that pull in fundamentally different directions.
Christianity says:
“In Christ, you are one.”
Nationalism says:
“We are one because we belong to this nation.”
Christianity makes Christ the basis of the people.
Nationalism makes the nation the basis of the people.
The two can coexist only so long as the nation remains secondary.
The moment the nation becomes the defining answer to the question “Who are my people?”, nationalism has ceased to be merely an earthly identity.
It has begun to occupy territory that belongs to the gospel.
And that is the real problem with Christian nationalism.
It is not that Christians are forbidden to have nations.
It is that no nation is permitted to become the Christian’s people in the place of the people whom Christ purchased for Himself.
If one Christian is willing to regard another Christian as a foreigner because they were born on opposite sides of a national border, while regarding an unbeliever as “his own” because they share a passport, then we should stop and ask a very uncomfortable question:
Who has actually defined his people—the gospel, or the nation?