History Rhymes
Nationalism is as Old as Humanity Itself
In The Drama of Scripture, Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew don’t use the term “nationalism” when discussing Genesis 11, the story of the Tower of Babel, but I believe this is exactly what they are describing. God commanded them to spread out over the face of the whole earth, but “instead of a God-given unity and identity, they seek a false, autonomous collectivism and a reputation of their own devising” (page 51). Bartholomew and Goheen insightfully observe that while the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden was a rejection of God on the individual level, the Tower of Babel was humanity’s first rejection of God at the societal level. God condemns this first display of nationalism, confusing their languages and scattering them across the face of the earth himself. But even in our separate lands and languages, nationalism persists as we reject and devalue God, and people outside our particular tribe.
But God loved humanity too much to give up on us, and in the following chapter, we learn of God’s grand plan to rescue us when he says to Abraham, “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:2-3, TNIV). The Israelites wouldn’t fully understand the implications of this call, and in their sinful fallen state would even misinterpret this call as entitlement. Since they were God’s chosen people, they could live however they wanted and would be immune from judgment. God was grieved by this sin, but still had no intention of giving up on humanity, sending his only son Jesus, not to abolish the laws of the Old Testament but to fulfill them, teaching us how to follow after God through him, and willingly sacrificing himself on the cross to pay for the sins of all humanity, past, present and future.
And yet despite witnessing many miracles during Jesus’s three year ministry, despite witnessing the sky grow dark and the veil of the temple being torn in two when Jesus surrendered his life, despite seeing and even touching the wounds of the resurrected Jesus, which you would think would be ample proof that Jesus was far more than a mere earthly mortal, and had a plan far grander than simply making Israel great again, nationalistic thinking persisted in the minds of the apostles when just before Jesus is taken up to Heaven, the apostles ask, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” to which Jesus responded, “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:6-8). For the first few centuries after Christ, the early church trusted in this beautiful promise, radically living out the teachings of Christ, even in the midst of brutal persecution. Tyrants thought they could stamp out Christianity, but in fact, the radical courage and steadfast commitment to the faith even when sentenced to prison, torture and death, only drew more people to Christianity.
While on the one hand, it was a blessing that Constantine’s conversion to Christianity ended the worst persecution of Christians, this event unfortunately also marked the beginning of the pattern in history of merging Christianity with empire (Christian nationalism). For centuries, regions would be “Christianized” not by missionaries lovingly sharing the good news of the gospel, but with the coercion of the sword. As different theological interpretations caused division of the church into different denominations, a particular denomination would be established as the official religion of a country, depending on who was in power, and Christians would go to war over denominational disagreements.
When our country’s founders separated church and state, this was radical, and some feared it would mean the end of Christianity. But in fact, when people were free to choose their religious practices, or have no religion at all, Christianity flourished. Yet even as religious liberty was codified in our Constitution, we did not extend this liberty to all on our soil, most notably enslaved Africans and native Americans, both of whom, in different ways were forcibly removed from their land and culture and had Christianity (a distorted version of it, we should note) cruelly imposed upon them. And still to this day, some do not want to honestly confront our country’s dark history, and continue to champion legislation that imposes their religious beliefs on people who may not share them. In short, they invoke God’s name, but have no desire to follow his command of love and mercy because I think they really just want to use God as justification for their power, and establish a false autonomous collectivism and reputation of their own devising.
Maybe you could forgive the nationalism of the ancient Israelites because they did not have the full revelation of Christ. But we ought to know better. We have the full revelation of Christ, the Jesus who loves and cherishes people of all races and nations, and called us to spread the gospel not by the sword or legislative mandates, but with love, baptizing them and teaching them his commands, which I believe he intended to be done on the individual level, one friend, neighbor, coworker at a time.
According to Mark Twain, history may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Some rhyme schemes in poetry are fun and memorable, like Dr. Seuss’s books, and some rhymes in culture make me smile too, like a story I saw recently about renewed interest in vinyl records among young people. But this rhyme of Christian nationalism has gotten old and tired, don’t you think?