Is “Make America Christian Again” Christian Nationalism?
From what I have been reading, there is no clear definition to what it means to be a Christian Nationalist. On one side, it simply means that we return to the kind of country we once were which was built and prospered upon biblical principles. In the making of this once great nation, the founders were theist who read the Bible and most of whom attended some kind of church. They were not all Christians in the biblical sense of the word (see John 3 in the Bible) but all held to the Providence of God. It was also held that the Church and State work together in harmony with one another, but that the State will not be the Church or require that all citizens of the state belong to one certain kind of church. There was and always has been freedom of religion in this country to the point where a person is free to have no religion at all. There is no intent or teaching in my book “Make America Christian Again” or in this movement to say otherwise. On the other side there are those who claim that Christian nationalism will make laws that will force people into becoming Christians or at least behave like Christians. This point of view is based upon a gross ignorance of what the Bible teaches. Any careful student of the Scriptures knows that by the works of the law nobody can be justified before God and thereby be a Christian which is the point of the law of Moses in the Old Testament. (See my study on the book of Romans) People do not obey the laws that exist today, there is no empirical evidence that anyone will obey laws that seek to mandate people to love their neighbor, to not kill or steal etc. The Bible continually gives evidence that to obey God or not is dependent upon the will of mankind. Even as God’s special chosen people, Israel as a nation, often disobeyed the law of God and suffered the consequences. The gospel, in this day is no different, men and women are given the opportunity to either believe or not to believe, people are free to chose either heaven or hell. Making America be what it was from the beginning will not change that freedom of choice. The key to making America Christian lies in the preaching of the gospel. The power of the gospel changes people from the inside out through the working of the Holy Spirit. These changed people will then live, do business and elect officials guided by their new nature and the doctrines of the Bible. As these people grow in number, America will return to its roots, not by law but by changed lives who do the deeds of the law because they want to, not because they have too.