Only gradually are folks in our pews coming to grasp the harms that attend Christian nationalism, the movement of right-wing Christians to exert dominion over everyone else. They observe the culture of fear, of hypocritical superiority, of shameless dishonesty. They perceive the targeted assaults on poor persons, nonwhite communities, LGBTQ persons, and our public goods.
Their gradual awakening is not their fault. In ordinary times, it is healthy to work, love, and play, with only passing attention to the news. We have developed immunity against the alarmist politics that have dominated our lifetimes. However, over the past four years, I have spoken on Christian nationalism dozens of times in all sorts of venues. I have watched the awareness sink in.
So what’s a preacher to do? With Jesus’s name soaked in blood, we might be tempted to preach “against” Christian nationalism. To some degree, we must. But let us remember our primary calling: to proclaim the love we encounter through Jesus Christ. We are called to a gospel of peace, justice, reconciliation, and judgment—all measured solely through that very love. What does such preaching look like when the church itself suffers division from a gospel of resentment, self-righteousness, and power-lust?
In this age, we must preach Jesus. Again and again. The message of Jesus is all we have; it has the additional benefit of being kryptonite to the false gospel of Christian nationalism.
This may sound like an empty claim—don’t Christian dominionists talk about Jesus all the time? Yes, they do. They primarily talk about Jesus as an identity marker, not as the one who reveals what God’s love looks like in the flesh. Listen to their sermons and online messages. They want crosses everywhere. They can take an Air Force pilot’s rescue—thank God for that rescue—and use it to compare a warrior’s suffering and rescue with the suffering and resurrection of Jesus. They liken a politician’s escape from an assassination attempt to the sacrifice of Jesus.
What won’t they do? Listen to them, please. They won’t do what we are called to do. They will not proclaim God’s blessing to the poor, the lowly, those thirsting for a taste of justice. They will not preach how Jesus felt compassion for hungry people and fed them, how Jesus even fed Judas. They seem not to comprehend or value Jesus’s companionship with sinners and criticism of religious experts. Good Samaritans, persistent widows, Lazarus and the rich man—all are strangers to them. They literally promote the lie that empathy is sinful. “Don’t judge”? They missed that day in Sunday school.
There are other things they won’t say. They won’t mention Jesus’s critique of power, his command to serve one another rather than to seek domination. They ignore, or have forgotten, what devotion in private looks like.
In these absences lies our call. Essentially, it is nothing new. We are called to proclaim Jesus’s kindness to sick little girls and grieving widows, his care for vulnerable children. We may share our wonder at shepherds, women, and fathers who embrace the lost—who could not imagine scolding them. We invite congregations to imagine ourselves in the place of the man who needs a Samaritan’s help, the rich man who leaves Lazarus bereft at the gates of our offices and schools. We celebrate that Jesus is, yes, spiritual, and yes, yes, yes, embodied.
Especially in days like these, we draw one essential practice from the way of Jesus. We must build community. Social scientists show how our society suffers from a lack of community, an “epidemic of loneliness.” But Jesus built community wherever he went. As Robert Karris noted years ago, in the Gospels it seems Jesus is always at a meal, on his way to a meal, or leaving a meal. We can evoke the sense that all of us are gathered together to break bread in Jesus’s presence. Let us invite folks to do just that—frequently. Deep community raises up an essential buttress against authoritarian regimes.
It is necessary and good to criticize Christian nationalism. As a young Southern Baptist convert, I memorized the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, endurance, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22–23). Based on what I see from local Christian academies, I fear their students do not memorize this passage, much less treasure it as I still do today. In contrast, Christian nationalism is power-hungry. It loves domination rather than service. It cannot sustain loving one’s neighbor, much less one’s enemy. That said, opposition cannot serve as our primary mode of preaching. We should voice our pointed critiques here and there. But simply preaching Jesus, his way, and his community constitutes our call and our strategy. Let us build up one another in love (Ephesians 4:16).
