Christian Nationalism in a Managerial Nation
With the Christian faith pushed off the main stage, technical managerialism has played a dual role as both a kind of religion and, at the same time, a substitute for the metaphysical superstructure that the Christian hierarchy of being used to provide. The managerial system, whether in its governmental form or, as we find it in business, in non-profits or NGOs, becomes both religion and god at the same time—an all-encompassing system within which “we live and move and have our being.”
Mike Sabo’s “What is Christian Nationalism?” is a fair and comprehensive introduction to a vibrant and messy emerging discourse. Broadly speaking, what is coming to the fore in this and other related movements is a desire to resist the corrupt American regime in ways that are specifically Christian, so as to bring about a change in the core governing principles of our society and align them with the Christian faith. The goal is to foster a flourishing society under the divine sovereignty of God.
This most definitely means imposing Christian religious values onto society. It does not mean turning society into a theocracy—that is, one ruled by a priestly class. Christian nationalists do acknowledge, though, that all law is an expression of morality, and all morality is at its core religious. It is not a question of whether some religious faith, even in the desiccated form of ideology, will be imposed upon you: it is a matter of which one it will be. Currently we are governed by the cult of Human Progress.
This said, though I embrace the goals of the movement, like many others I am less than enthusiastic about the term “Christian Nationalism.” It evokes too much of late 19th- and early 20th-century nationalist movements. It is a set of terms that have already been embraced and then rejected by the regime. The idea of “nationalism” is itself a product of propaganda, an artificial construct imposed upon us so as to harness ever-larger degrees of technical management at ever-greater societal scale.
The implication of nationalism is that you give up your local attachments to the community of your birth—with its real, tangible, embedded relationships—to embrace the abstract construct of a “nation.” The regime’s powerbrokers, horrified by what nationalism unleashed in the first half of the 20th century, doubled down and argued that we needed to transcend not just the local bonds of community, but also the looser and more generalized affinities inspired by the nation. In becoming a truly global community, we would then transcend the divisions that nationalism spawned.
But quibbles like this are relatively small things. I raise the point only to note that “Christian Nationalism” embraces many who are willing to participate in this emerging discourse and movement, comfortable knowing that the terms, labels, ideas, means, and approaches will get worked out over time. Maybe the label sticks, maybe it doesn’t. If the label is all that stands in your way, don’t let it trip you up.
Broadly speaking, those of us involved in this project seek a society which is governed by Christian principles. What does this look like? For me, it does not mean seizing the reins of power within the current system. Why is this? In spite of the deeply Christian nature of American society at the time of the founding, I would argue along with the French sociologist, philosopher, and theologian Jacques Ellul that the American revolutionary mindset, even in its infant form, was produced by a system of values which was gaining ascent through the rise of the merchant class: technical managerialism.
Ellul argues in “Autopsy of Revolution” that the ingredient necessary to turn a revolt into a revolution is “the plan.” You need a group of people capable of turning a set of grievances into a coherent structure and set of institutions. This organizing capacity has always been the particular strength of bureaucratically minded managers. They have been adept at rational analysis, being able to look at complex situations, abstracting them, shaping them and organizing them into a rational system through which governing institutions, processes, and policies could be instituted. They told us themselves what they were doing. A group of men went into the backrooms and developed a rational plan for a new nation:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
They looked upon past ways of doing things as inferior and so set about to develop a better system. They desired to remove the inadequacies, corruptions, and variability inherent in the older system of nobility, which relied heavily on persons and embedded traditions. They wanted to replace this system with a more rational, a more perfect union.
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A Shocking Reversal: The US Officially Turns a Blind Eye to Nigeria’s Endangered Christians
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who also serves on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, estimates that as many as 8,000 Christians have been murdered in cold blood between January and September this year. Meanwhile, the Nigerian government does almost nothing—and the Biden administration has decided to do even less.
After decades of disturbing eyewitness reports, today’s international religious freedom observers have become deeply concerned about Nigeria’s imperiled Christian communities.
On Friday, November 19, just hours after Secretary of State Antony Blinken launched his first diplomatic outreach to Africa, we learned that the United States has inexplicably removed Nigeria from its State Department list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC). To some, that may sound like innocuous paperwork or an ambassadorial feel-good gesture. But, in fact, this de-listing of Nigeria’s CPC designation is an outrageous betrayal of an already brutalized Christian community. And it forebodes multiplied death squads, torched villages and farmlands, and devastated homeless refugees.
After years of well-documented massacres and mutilated survivors, the Trump administration began to look more closely at the Islamist targeting of Nigerian Christians. Announced by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Nigeria’s Country of Particular Concern designation was made in early December 2020.
The US State Department explains that CPC-designated countries have “engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom” during the reporting period. The International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) defines particularly severe violations of religious freedom as “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom, including violations such as torture, degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges, abduction or clandestine detention, or other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons.”
Nigeria has long been one of the most dangerous countries on earth for Christians. According to Voice of America in early 2021:
A report by the US-based Christian persecution monitoring group Open Doors shows the number of Christians killed in 2020 increased by 60%, mostly because of Islamic violence against Nigerian Christians. The study says more than 2,200 of 4,761 Christians killed around the world in 2020 died in Nigeria because of radical Islamists… Another US-based organization, International Christian Concern, estimates 50,000 to 70,000 Christians have died in violent attacks in Nigeria over 18 years, mostly carried out by Boko Haram terrorists or arms-wielding gangs.
How dangerous is the situation in Nigeria?
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How Hard is Your Heart?
Charles Spurgeon once noted, “The same sun that melts wax hardens clay. And the same Gospel which melts some persons into repentance hardens other in their sins.” God pursues us in mercy, love, and truth. As God shines the light of the gospel, a soft heart grows softer still. As God comes after the proud, a hard heart grows harder still. How do we soften our hearts? By growing in humility.
You can tell a good piece of fruit or vegetable by its color and by its feel. The avocado might be the trickiest one I know. A novice might think that a bright green, hard avocado is the best, but counter-intuitively, the best avocados are dark, with shades of brown, giving easily to the touch. The heart of a growing Christian also gives easily to the touch.
No one comes to see a counselor or pastor to talk about their problems not wanting success, but the state of our hearts so often resists the very thing we want. A soft heart can turn my mediocre counsel into pearls of wisdom. A hard heart will turn the wisest counsel ever offered into sawdust.
Solomon offers encouragement and a warning, “Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity” (Prov. 28:14). It’s easy to see this in others’ lives, isn’t it? We observe a friend responds to loss by numbing themselves with food and we worry about how they are shutting down. We watch as a family member poorly chooses their friends and we are concerned about the pit they are driving toward.
And yet, when it comes to our own hard hearts, we are often blind. We excuse our unhealthy behavior as an aberration, not a pattern.
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How Israel’s Hymns Prove Postmillennialism
Our engagement with the Psalms demands a response. It’s not enough to nod in agreement and carry on as before. If your heart and hymnbook are full of defeat and despair, it’s high time for a reformation. We need to ditch the weak-kneed theology that has infiltrated our ranks and put on the whole armor of God, ready to fight the good fight with the confidence of those already on the winning side. Remember, the Psalms don’t call us to a passive, defeated life, waiting for the end times. They call us to action, dominion, to take up the mantle of our King and push forward His Kingdom here on earth, as it is in heaven.
If you want to learn what a culture values, and if you’re going to understand the worldview that underpins a nation, then you must look no further than their songs. No matter what the whompyjawed ideologues say behind fake smiles and teleprompters, and no matter what manufactured narratives are peddled by the bobbleheaded pundits in the fake news media, the hopes and dreams of a people will be found most clearly stated in their anthems, ballads, and refrains. If you want to know what a society believes in, where their hopes lie, what they think about the purpose of life, and why we are all here, then pay attention to the lyrics and hymns they produce. It will be telling.
For instance, let’s say that I have been living under a rock for a few decades, and somehow, I end up washing up on the shores of this strange land called the USA. If I wanted to figure out who these people are and what things they value, I might look up their ten most popular songs for that year. If I did that, I would find out that these people believe our purpose in life is to engage in womanizing, emasculation, promiscuous and filthy sex, getting drunk, doing drugs, and being a thoroughgoing moral degenerate. But it’s all good, as long as we have a good time, right? That is the attitude our songs are celebrating. While I wish I could say that I am being hyperbolic, I read through the lyrics of the ten most popular songs right now, and if anything, I am being excessively modest. That is the discordant melody and the seedy song we are singing about who we are. And based on our cultural anthems, we are not only a very sick and disgusting people, but we are unashamedly proud of it.
However, this was not the case in ancient Israel, whose hymn book tells a much different story about who they were and what they valued as a society. Amid the hundred and fifty songs that we have preserved in our canon, we can see themes of trust, praise, and worship of Yahweh, lament, and suffering in times of struggle, repentance and confession, thanksgiving, His love, and covenantal faithfulness to His people, as well as His sovereignty and Kingship over all things. In fact, one of the most prominent themes in the book of Psalms is how God is going to take a sin-laden world that was handed down to us in Adam and, through His Son, establish a Kingdom that fills the world with worshippers, which ties in perfectly with the themes that we have been talking about so far.
If you are new to the party, we are in a series called a practical postmillennialism, where we have been talking about what postmillennialism is. We have been arguing that postmillennialism is the story of how God will fill the world with worshippers before the curtains close on this old world. This is the promise He made to Adam in the garden before He sinned (Genesis 1:28). This is the promise God repeated to Noah after sin (Genesis 9:1). It is the hope that Abraham’s line will bless every family on earth (Genesis 12:3) and every nation on earth (Genesis 18:18). And it is the promise that humans will never be able to do this on their own, because we are all like Adam, so a messianic Shiloh will come and bring obedience and worship to all the nations (Genesis 49:10), filling them with worshippers. We have seen that Jesus will take the promises given to all those men in Genesis and accomplish them as the true and better Adam.
Last week, we saw how those world-filling promises are not only contained within the book of Genesis but spill out into the pages of the Exodus, or in the law found in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, or in the conquests narratives of Joshua, and in the lead up to and all throughout the era of the kings from Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles. We saw that these cosmic promises that were given by God would be fulfilled. God would not abandon His plan. And before the last grain of sand falls through the hourglass of time, God will have filled the world with worshippers through His one and only Son, Jesus. These are His promises, and He is going to fulfill them.
Now today, we will see how the book of Psalms takes these glorious themes and sings them back to us, even shouting them at us like a metal concert with loud crashing symbols going off in the background so that we would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to miss the throbbing chorus. Today, as we move out of the history of Israel’s kings and move into the poetry and songs of Israel, we will see how the hymnbook of God’s people echoes the promise of a better King, a ferocious King, who will put all of His enemies underneath His feet so that He can fill the world with worshippers as God has promised.
A Song of Crushing Enemies
As men have become increasingly emasculated in our culture and radical feminism has run through our societal veins like rat poison, the widespread view of Jesus has shifted away from the warrior priest-king to the humble, loveable wuss. If that stings, it is because it is true. In art and movies, we shamefully depict Him with long flowing hair, soft, supple skin, and longing eyes, looking like a woman with a well-manicured beard. In popular evanjellyfish music, Jesus has become the emotional boyfriend in the sky, to whom we belt out all our emotive mantric babblings, so He will wrap us up in warm worshipful hugs. This is ironic because the songs we see concerning Him in Scripture are masculine and ferocious, and they focus not only on His affections but also His wrath against the wicked.
No matter how sappily evangelicalism has painted the Lion of Judah, and no matter how loud they roar that we lose down here, the softening of this King and the defeat of His people does not work in the Psalms. He is not a mere savior of souls working for a Kingdom filled with harp-playing, toga-wearing cloud riders. This prevailing notion suggests that the church’s role is essentially to crash and burn in this lifetime, to retreat from the world like cowards in anticipation of a heavenly reward, sidelining the Kingdom’s advancement on earth. Many argue that Jesus is not actively building His Kingdom on this earth because He is focused entirely on spiritual things. However, this image starkly contrasts with the robust, authoritative Messiah depicted in the Psalms.
In these God-breathed hymns, Jesus is not depicted as a distant, passive figure; instead, He emerges as a mighty warrior, a king not only concerned with the afterlife but vigorously involved in the here and now, establishing His rule, authority, and dominion across the globe. And there will be setbacks. There will be enemies who rise up and pop off at the mouth. The Scriptures are not silent about those moments. But, they are also not quiet about the Messiah standing as the indomitable General leading the charge against the hordes of hell until every single enemy of God has been crushed under King Jesus’ feet. In that sense, the Psalms aren’t just songs; they are war cries, declarations of victory by a King who will bring utter devastation and ruin upon His enemies.
Take Psalm 2 and Psalm 110 for example. These aren’t gentle whispers of a far-off distant hope; they are booming thunderclaps of God’s immutable promise.
Psalm 2:7-12 says:“I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to me, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall shatter them like earthenware.’ Now therefore, O kings, show discernment; take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son, that he not become angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in him!” – Psalm 2:7-12
Although David wrote this song, He is not talking about himself. He is an outsider to this scene. He is nothing more than a privileged spectator who returns and reports all He heard and beheld within the Godhead. He is writing a song about a conversation God the Father and God the Son are having with one another. A song where the Father will bring His Son to this earth as His only begotten Son. A song where the Father will give His Son all of the rebel nations on earth as the inheritance for His obedience. And, after assuming His global dominion (alluded to in Matthew 28:18), He will begin the process of overthrowing all of the sedition on earth, breaking into pieces all of those who are in ongoing insurrection against God.
Because of Jesus’ incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension, He will rule over the nations of this earth with a rod of iron and shatter all of His Father’s rebels like pottery shards. This is why the world’s kings are told to be wise and take this warning very seriously. They are not told to repent in terror because Jesus is building a Kingdom that loses down here and has no impact down here. No! They should be terrified because if they do not turn from their evil in order to worship the Messiah King on this earth and pay homage to Him in His rule on this planet, then He will overthrow them here, displace them here, and bury them here in His righteous wrath.
God the Father is promising that Jesus will win down here, rule down here, and crush everyone who opposes Him down here. That is a far different tune than what we are used to hearing in modern Christianity. But, alas, there it is in the text. We see that this Messiah doesn’t come as a passive observer of world history but as the relentless conqueror of it. He is the one who claims every inch of this earth as His rightful domain because He won it as His inheritance on the cross.
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