Christian Nationalism

By request, our September Pub Theology topic will be Christian Nationalism, a phrase that seems to be on everyone’s lips of late. I intend the following primer (below) as a conversation starter—merely an amuse-bouche—and certainly not as any sort of exhaustive overview.

Pub Theology: Christian Nationalism

The Messy Marriage of Church and State

Once Upon a Time

Christianity began as a sect within Judaism. This actually helped to facilitate its spread. Judaism was a protected religion under Roman law; the Romans respected nothing quite so much as antiquity. Furthermore, some estimates as to the number of Jews, Proselytes, and God-Fearers go as high as 10% of the Empire. Wherever Paul and Peter went, they often found a synagogue. Authorities didn’t intervene in intra-Jewish debate.

The Break

Things changed under Nero. Christianity had taken root amongst women, slaves, and the lower classes—as well as not a few of the elite—and when Nero made a landgrab after the famous fire (during which he supposedly fiddled) he found theophagic rabble handy scapegoats. By the end of the first century, Jewish Christians had been expelled from the synagogues, removing their religious protections. Now they faced death, should they refuse to sacrifice a pinch of incense to the genius of the Emperor.

Abroad and Underground

Christian missionaries carried the Gospel into Persia, across the silk road, to the far side of China. Generally, however, we tend to focus on the Church within the Roman Empire. For 300 years, from Nero to Constantine, Christians had to keep their faith below the radar. This led to literal underground worship, celebrating the Eucharist atop the bones of the martyrs. The cult of saints grew out of this traumatic period.

A Bridge Too Far

Then came the miracle. Before the Battle of Milvian Bridge (AD 312) the Emperor Constantine purportedly saw a vision of a Christian symbol in the heavens, and the words, “In hoc signo, vinces.” His Legions painted the Chi-Rho on their shields—a pre-Christian sign now given new significance—and won the war. Soon thereafter, Constantine first legalized and then actively supported Christianity.

The World Turned Upside-Down

Risen from actual graves, the Church now wielded much of the power previously directed against it. I wish I could say that we did so wisely. Clergy now wore stoles of Roman office. Fanatical mobs struck back violently against Jews and pagans alike. Within a handful of generations, Christianity became the official religion of the Empire and the state began to persecute paganism, closing the last temples in the fifth century.

An Awkward Fit

Compromises had to be made. Previous pacifists now commanded the Legions. The age of red martyrs gave way to the white and the green. Christ had been a victim of capital punishment; now Christians were meting out executions. This had to have been both disorienting and intoxicating. Theology of the Cross gave way to that of glory.

Nicaea for Good and for Ill

Unifying the Church paid great dividends for the faithful, and helped to transform secular authority as well. Early Christians maintained an intense focus on the poor and on the need for forgiveness. They also engaged in rancorous polemics with well-educated and resourceful theological opponents, be they Jewish, pagan, or nonconformist Christian. Alas, the weight of Empire soon came down on schismatics.

Would We Know Christ?

Power corrupts, especially those who claim to be incorruptible. But as the State compromised the Church, so the Church influenced the State for the better. After the collapse of the Western Empire, barbarian kingdoms came to Christ for many reasons both spiritual and practical. Ecclesiastical structures brought with them literacy, education, communication, recordkeeping, bureaucracy—all the machinery necessary for centralized sovereignty. Would we have known Christ without this alliance?

A Faustian Bargain

Humanism, abolition, universal rights, modern science, and the preserved wisdom of antiquity all rest on Christian roots. But despite the Peace and Truce of God, we’re still left with warrior societies butchering each other in the Name of Jesus. Christendom contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction, for how can we follow the One who eschewed all worldly power whilst wielding such power ourselves? How can we victimize others, when we seek mystical union with the Paschal Lamb of God?

Christless Christianities

The collapse of medieval Christendom and the rise of the modern nation-state revived the old and brutal gods of blood and soil. Nationalism coöpts Christ in order to establish triumphalist narratives: e.g. “God is an Englishman.” World War I killed Christian Europe. We cannot serve two masters, both God and a flag. The trenches took our faith in both.

Goddamned Fascism

Fascism is a political project asserting that the strong do what they will, while the weak suffer what they must. It inevitably wraps itself up in eugenics, xenophobia, revanchism, and the idea that certain nations and races have “proper” religious identities that are important, yet subservient, to the nation and the race. Jesus is useful in order to gain power, in other words. Witness Catholicism under Franco and Mussolini, or the “German Christianity” of the Nazis—or for that matter, Puritan New England.

Top-Gallant Delight

Patriotism, as they say, is love of one’s country; nationalism is hatred of everyone else’s. St Paul argued that Christians make better citizens because they put God first. Separation of Church and State, as championed by the Enlightenment, protects the Church from the State rather than the other way around. Historically states do just fine when they have a domesticated Church blessing all of the evil they do.