In The Arena With Jason Warman
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just commenting from the sidelines — they’re in the fight, shaping faith and
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In The Arena With Jason Warman
Why Christian Nationalism Isn't Evil With Nathan Finochio | Ep. 012
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In this episode, we take a careful and honest look at Christian Nationalism—what the term actually means, how it’s commonly misunderstood, and why it has become a cultural catch-all label.
We begin by asking the hard questions:
What do people think Christian nationalism is? How did the term shift from a specific idea into a broad accusation? And where is the line between Christianity influencing culture, healthy patriotism, political idolatry, and actual theocracy?
From there, we explore how Christianity has historically shaped Western civilization—human dignity, equality, hospitals, education, charity, law, and moral frameworks—and challenge the idea that any civilization is truly “neutral.” Every society is formed by a worldview; the real question is which worldview is shaping it.
This episode is an invitation to move beyond labels, think biblically, and engage the conversation with clarity, humility, and conviction.
Nationalism is not about hating other people. It's about loving what you have at home.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Nationalism is about is is a re-embracing of the idea that it's okay to love your family and your countrymen. Order does not mean exclusion. Priority does not mean exclusion. Because you need dangerous good men to keep dangerous bad men a check. Totally. If you don't read the Bible, that's correct.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to In the Arena Podcast with Jason Warman. Hey, welcome to In the Arena. My name is Jason. I'm kind of a big deal. I'm so glad you're here. I'm talking fast. We have a uh we have a tea time in a few minutes, so priorities. We're gonna get get a podcast done. And uh I'm so glad you're with us. We started in the arena for a couple of reasons. One is uh we wanted to resource our church, and whoever might want to listen, just like you get 30 minutes on a Sunday to try to help people develop a biblical mindset on different issues, and then the other part of it is in the arena, it comes from a a line from Teddy Roosevelt. It's like not the critic who counts, it's the man who actually gets in the arena. And I just wanted to have a space. I'm a local church pastor. I want to get in a space where we could just get in the arena of what's being knocked around, sometimes all out fought out in culture and just have conversations. And one of the things I love to do is when we have a guest that is speaking at our church, is to uh do a podcast while we have a special guest here, and today I'm really excited. We got none other than the Nathan Finocchio with us. I'm so glad you're here. If people don't know you, you founded Theos You, which is incredible content, a social media page that is perhaps some of the best memes in in all of social media to uh Theos Seminary, or people can actually get a seminary degree. You've written books. I love your Substack. If people don't know about your Substack, it's worth the investment. Like I preached I preached my Easter message off of a Substack you wrote like a year ago over the early church gathering on Sundays and the importance of it. And I built a whole Easter message off of a off of a Substack in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00Well send me your notes, man, because I want to preach that too.
SPEAKER_01Let's clarify. I preached it, I built it on the Bible, but it was inspired, it was inspired by a Nathan Finocchio Substack. So appreciate your voice. Thanks for being on, man.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, man.
SPEAKER_01My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Hey, we I wanted to get into um like I've been wanting to do a podcast on this for a while. I've we've kind of talked around it, but never like just landed on it. And it's something called Christian nationalism. Yeah. And um, depending on, you know, just that phrase will trigger people. There's people melting down right now because I use the term Christian nationalism.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I'll I'll posture this. I think one of the reasons people have Christian an issue with Christian nationalism. I'll tell the story real quick. I there was a guy in the in the lobby years ago, and I had said something along like political, which prone to do from time to time, take a little political take in the pulpit.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And he was like, Are you a Christian nationalist? And I was like, Yeah. And he was so mad, he was visibly shaking. Like I literally thought he was gonna punch me. Right. And like I've not been in a fist fight in a lobby yet, but you know, it's like I think this is about to happen. And that I didn't know what to do. I should have diffused it now, looking back at it, and like talk to him about what he thinks Christian nationalism was. But he literally just turned and ran out of the lobby before we even had a conversation. But it triggered him that bad that the idea that like I would be like own being a Christian nationalist. Right. Because I think most people think when you say Christian nationalism, you're talking about a theocracy.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01Like, you know, like uh I as a local church pastor am gonna hijack the government and like everybody's gotta get baptized at Coast Life Church and like everybody has to attend Sunday school. Sure. Uh you know, on on down the list. And I I would just love your take on Christian nationalism as a as as a phrase, and then like what that actually means when when someone says Christian nationalism. Right.
SPEAKER_00So let's start with the word nationalism first, right? Which is that's the culprit behind a lot of the sour taste in people's mouth. After two world wars, uh Truman and the UN is birth uh is birthed. Truman kind of leads the charge. Right. Um and there's this post-war sentiment that is as follows nations are the problem. And if everybody gets out of their nations and joins a uh united na international bureaucracy, that will solve all of the world's problems. You know, so that is an operating assumption that most people have today. Most people believe that nations are the problems, and if we just send uh and if we participate in a global round table, we will never have conflicts again. There will be, you know, that that's that is how we usher in, you know, the dawn of the age of Aquarius, so to speak. Right. Right. Um, when the moon is if it's in its seventh hour and uh Jupiter aligns with Mars. Um right. So that is the political sophistry. Um I think it's it's it is exactly that. It's it's political astrology.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00There's it is it is completely and totally foolish. It you know, who are these angels that are going to guard uh and you know and become the global watchdogs for you know like how is that how is that possible? You got sorry, you got China? China's a part of the UN, right? Iran is a part of the UN. They're on the Human Rights Council. Totally, exactly, yeah. So the UN is complete and utter nonsense. It's trash. Um now is it does it does it is hosting people working things out a good idea? Absolutely. Yeah. Anytime nations can come to the table and discuss some stuff, great. Um, so if if the UN serves that purpose, great. But I I reject that nationalism and nationalism has to be understood in the context of um an organizing principle, a self-determined the the idea that collectives should have the right to self-determine. Okay, so for example, I am an Irish nationalist. I believe that Ireland should have the right to self-determine apart from English imperialism. Okay, let's define three modes of government that have been the three main modes of political organization in the history of humanity. The first is tribalism, the second is is empire, and the third is nationalism. Nationalism is only recent. Um it's it's only it's it's it's it's actually late in in uh in the government of nations. Typically, uh, and uh Joram Hazoni says this, that the two horns of of tribalism um and empire or imperialism, they're the two horns that have gourded humanity for most of the millennia. Okay. Nationalism comes later on, it really uh comes through uh the Old Testament, actually, through Israel. Israel is kind of the first nation that is not allowed to attack other nations. After they take land that Yahweh said, This is my land, and I'm giving it to you. I'm you you are dispossessing these other tribes. The other tribes were dispossessed because they were human sacrificing, right? Baby sacrificing. Like they were the they were the worst humans. Think of the worst humans on earth that are just absolutely despicable, cannibalistic, demon, you know, and God's like, destroy them, please, kill them, kill him, you know. So Israel goes into Canaan, dispossesses Canaan from these seven nations that were disgusting people. Um, and then uh Yahweh says, These are your borders, tells them their borders, and then says, You can't attack anybody else. So you're not gonna you're not to mess with Egypt, you're not to mess with Syria, you're not to, or the Assyrians, you're not to mess with the Babylonians, you're not to mess with the Edomites, you're not to mess because this this land is their inheritance, you're not to mess with these people. Like Israel was essentially given borders, those are your borders, love within your borders. So that's what nationalism. Nationalism is these are your borders, love within your borders. Now, nations, nations, uh the the birth of a nation is a bloody thing, like the birth of a child. And there's no way out of the reality that uh that that that's that that would that has is his human history, it'll always be human history. Right. You know what I mean? Like like Ukraine is is is is is being there's in the last hundred years, there's so many nations that have been birthed. Right. And these births come through conflicts because there's typically these tribes that are trying to self-determine or they're warring against another tribe and then they get wiped out. All I'm saying is is um empire. Uh so Israel was the produ the the the kind of like the the first nation that didn't imperialize. Do you know what I mean? Like they were commanded to not imperialize. And when they did imperialize, they lost the wars. Yahweh didn't fight with them. So um, so you have empire, which is just you know, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, and just eat everybody alive, you know, sh feed them into the human mowing machine, you know. And then you have tribalism, which is like um it's blood. Imperialism is blood in their streets, tribalism is blood in your streets. It's it's like it's in fighting, it's very close, it's hand to hand, it's it's in your it's in the towns and in the villages, and and there's no protection. Um, nationalism is sort of like tribes coming together and they're going, we have well, we have this common language, or we have this common um history, or we have this common religion, or we have this common ideal, and so we're gonna work together and we're gonna form, we're gonna and we're gonna self-determine. Okay. So it is the best option between tribalism and an empire. Empire being this globalistic machine that's eating everything up and you know, bringing Starbucks everywhere and destroying the local mom and pop shop.
SPEAKER_01Right, right.
SPEAKER_00You know, like and so for example, I'll give you an example. So I went to Japan last month. I love uh being in Japan and uh sort of two months ago, two months ago. And I love how Japanese Japan is. Yeah, when you're in Japan, you're like, this is odd, nothing is familiar here, and I love it. Right. The food is Japanese, the people are Japanese, their customs are Japanese, the way they ride the escalator, all you know, everybody's on the left-hand side, and if you want to pass, you can you can just go on the right side. Dear Lord, that's it's amazing. It's totally, it's total efficiency. Yes. They don't begrudge you if you want to go past them. And they get out of the way. They get out of the way. They uh they totally. It's just it's a beautiful their culture is amazing. I don't want them to become American. Right. I don't want them to be anything else than Japanese. That's nationalism. Nationalism is when you are unafraid to love who you are. I was in Italy recently. I love that Italy is Italian. I don't want Italy to be African, I don't want it to be Arabic, I don't want it to be Japanese, I don't want it to be American, I want Italy to be Italian. So when I go there, I don't want to see Thai restaurants. I don't, you know what I mean? Like God bless Thailand. Keep Thailand Thai. You know, like, but I want Italy to be Italian. I want, I want, I want the I want the people speaking to be speaking Italian. I want the inhabitants to be Italian. Nationalism is not about hating other people, it's about loving what you have at home. Right. India should remain Indian. Right. Pakistan should remain Pakistani. England should remain English. That's what nationalism is. America should remain American.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00You know, now America is not necessarily an ethnicity, it's always been kind of multi-ethnic. Right. But multiculturalism is not the American uh experiment. It's it's never been. America has always been a, this is our culture, we have a constitution, this is our this is our philosophy of government. And when you come here, America was a melting pot where people would come and they would become, they would say, I'm an American, I'm an African American, I'm a thing American, whatever. You can hyphenate it. Right. Bottom line is as long as you're an American, right? Right. But what's happening is there's this anti-national multiculturalism. Not multi-ethnic, don't mistake me. I'm not talking about multi-ethnicity, right? Love multi-ethnicity. Like, for example, like um the church is the church is supposed to be a multi-ethnic thing, but the church is not a multicultural thing.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Because uh so there's this guy, this guy by the name of Christopher Dawson, he's a Catholic historian, and his major contribution, his major thesis to history, uh, and and his his surveying of history was that culture is downstream from cult. Not it's not the other way around. People don't believe a certain god because they live on a river. People uh live on a river and they and and they worship the river god and um they and the and the the river god in uh uh affects their their their worship affects their it's not just their geography, their worship affects how they live. Yeah. So obviously, you know, like or you know, like um when you look through when you look through human history, of course, geography is gonna have some sort of of you know the you know the gods of the lands and whatever. Um people are good people are gonna be influenced by geography, but they're more influenced by culture. Yeah. And and and the root word of culture is cult. And and so that was Dawson's thesis, and and I believe that it's it's a correct thesis, that India is the way it is because of its gods. Um Italy is the way it is because of its gods. The Greeks were the way that they were because of their gods, right? So America has a culture. It has our culture is downstream from our cult. We were we were a Christian nation. Yeah, I don't think that we are a post-Christian nation because 70% of Americans still identify as Christian. And and the ones that don't are Christian to their core. You know, for example, like atheists, they still believe in loving their neighbor. It's like, oh, where'd you get that from, you unoriginal reader? Right? So, like, so even people, even even people who aren't Christian, their vices are still Christian. Yeah. So um, so what I'm saying is is uh I believe that every I I I I love diversity, I love it, and I want the nations to I'm a I'm a Ukrainian nationalist. You know, I I don't want Ukraine to become Russian, I want it to stay Ukraine, Ukrainian.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I am a um Jesserton called himself an Indian nationalist. He's like, what are we doing in India? You know what I mean? Like, get the why are the British there? You know, it's like let them be Indian, you know, like um, so I'm an um I'm so I'm an American nationalist. I believe that nationalism is still the best way forward. Now, uh you have to define nationalism. So nationalism is the right to self-determine. Um, I believe that when a Mexican crosses the Mexican border, you know, hey, there's new rules here. You know what I mean? Like if I'm I'm a Canadian and I come down to America, I can't just presume to bring Canadian identity, Canadian culture, whatever. Like if I come to this country country, I should adopt its values. And uh the beauty of a border is that it differentiates ideas. So your ideas in Mexico, they stop at this border. Right. Right. Because we self-determine, and this is our not only our cultural values, these are our legal, this is our our philosophy of life. And um, and it doesn't mean that it doesn't mean that American burgers and fries are better than Mexican food. It's that you know that's that's such a reductive argument. Right. It's about this is how we see governance, this is how we this is our history, this is our shared, these are our shared value systems. So if you're gonna come, embrace it. Right. Does that make sense? Yes. I'm I'm pro-immigration, but as long as people embrace the national values, um now it's really difficult for people to do that. This is why Japan is like pretty opposed to most immigration, because they find that, well, no, like uh we're getting on pretty good, and we're actually you can come and you can work here, but you're not gonna become a citizen here because this is these are our values. And to me, I just go, Great. That's your ability. That's you, that's how you want to self-determine, love that for you. There are the ja do the Japanese hate anybody? No, they just love themselves. For some reason in the modern world, you have to let other people live in your home in order to demonstrate your love towards them. And you and you have to turn your back on your own. A nationalist doesn't fight because he hates the soldier in front of him, he fights because he loves the family behind him. Yeah. So nationalism is about is is a re-embracing of the idea that it's okay to love your family and your countrymen. And for some reason, that's a perversion in the United States. It's a perversion in the United States because multiculturalism is the god of secularism. Wow. And they want our they want our ha our they want us to whitewash our past, the good, the bad, and the ugly. They want to whitewash it. They don't want it to be a Christian nation, even though we are a Christian nation. Right. You know, it's it's it is what it is. It's it's it's the cake is it's been baked into the cake. You can't undo it. You know what I mean? Like all of our instincts, they're already there. Um so that that's that is nationalism is is loving what is behind you, loving what is loving your family and being unapologetic about that love for it. And it and not saying that just because an Englishman wants to live in England um means that he hates the French. Right. You know, like I find that the more that I love my home, the more that I love other people's homes. But I don't want to live like the I don't want to live like the Italians, man. Like I would never want to live like the Italians. I don't want to live like the Japanese either. But when I go to their countries, I j I'm just overwhelmed by the beauty and I love how they do things. I love their difference.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00How is that? Hey, so Americans need to fall back in love with nationalism. Well, nationalism always leads to imperialism, nationalism leads to wars. That's stupid too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, because that's like saying that if I love my wife too much, I'll beat her. You know what I mean? No, if I love my country, that's not gonna cause me to go and attack somebody else. Right. Yeah. What what we don't understand about so many nationalist movements that turned imperial was that they were actually imperialists in their core. Right. So, for example, Hitler was a nationalist, but he was also an imperialist. He he had this vision, like uh Chesserton's uh, or was it Belleck that said that um the Third Reich was just the scorpion's tail of a hundred years of Frederican exceptionalism? Wow. They had this concept from Frederick the Great that the Germanies was supposed to be this united, you know, of all these little like for example, Russia's trying to recreate the empire.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00That's why they want Ukraine, that's why they want Belarus, that's why they want all this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so Hitler was a nationalist in the sense that he nationalized some things. Um he was a capitalist. Um, but he uh the moment that that Germany had its strength back, yeah, you know, in you know, reconstructing after World War I, he tried to recreate the empire. So the first thing he did was invade Poland because that Poland, without without Poland, they don't have the Russian or the the you know the the um the Prussian Empire, right? Um so to speak. So he was a globalist, so rather sorry, rather, he was an imperialist, right? Had he been a nationalist and a nationalist only, he would have never invaded Poland. Right. He would have never invaded uh you know all of the countries that he in Hungary and all of those, you know, so so uh a nationalist is not a nationalists don't invade other countries. They don't do that. Now they might come to the aid of an ally, right? And they and of course, you know, so so then the pushback for for many Christians is like, well, you know, we have a citizen in heaven. Well, I'm like, yeah, I totally of course we have a citizenry in heaven, but we also have a citizenry here. Every you know, Paul had a citizenship that he he appealed to all the time, you know, when it was good for him. Yeah. Um well, you know, the problem with nationalism is that it demands a higher loyalty. It demands loyalty to Caesar. Not American nationalism, certainly not Italian nationalism. The Italians, they're they're you know, they're they're Christian nationalists. Last time I checked. Uh Italy is a Catholic nation, officially. Yes. England is an Anglican nation, officially. Germany is a Lutheran nation, officially. Jesus is here, my nation. Is here. You know, like so there's a lot of ordered love. Ordered love is like it never means to the exclusion of something else. So for example, like Paul writes continually about ordered love. He says, um, you know, don't neglect to take care of the poor, especially the household of faith. Right? So Paul goes, take care of poor people, but especially take care of Christians that are poor in your church. That doesn't mean don't take care of people that aren't Christians. It just means you better be taking care of these people first. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So priority does not mean exclusivity. Um, Paul does the same thing in the home. He says, you know, like, hey, if you can't take care of your house, you know, or or he says, um, a man who can't provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever, right? So your immediate family, I'm my responsibility is to my immediate family first. Right. So there's priority of God. So immediate family, household of faith, the poor, right? So like so order does not mean exclusion. Priority does not mean exclusion. And these are the common uh misconceptions about about uh uh Christian nationalism is that they think, oh, you you have a higher order to see, you know, now you you know, Christian nationalism, when you blend it, you know, you blend the political and the in the church, then you have problems. No, actually, you it's better because because the church is the highest authority, the government would be the lower authority. Uh and now some somebody might say, well, then then you know you're gonna force conversions. I'm like, no, I wouldn't force conversions. Are they forcing conversions in Anglican England right now? Are they forcing conversions in in Catholic uh Italy right now? Are they forcing conversions in Lutheran Germany right now? Nobody is, right? So like these are boogeyman monsters that people people make up to try to uh erase our our history and take away from the fact that Christianity is just better for the world than pretty much anything else. Um and then and then uh and or or they try to blame conservative Christians and say you're gonna you know you're gonna have a loyalty to Caesar. It's like, dude, get lost. You know what I mean? Like that's literally the that is like the dumbest thing ever. Right. So straw you should steel man the argument rather than straw manning it, and you're straw manning my argument. You know that. Like nobody, no Christian nationalist is uh asking for loyalty to President Trump over Jesus Christ. Right. Like that is lit, that's ludicrous. I've never heard anybody say that. No, no, nobody would say that. Right. Because you're a Christian nationalist, not a nationalist Christian. Right? A Christian nationalist is somebody who prioritizes Christianity, and then from their Christianity, they they they bring their Christianity into the political world.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Right. So a Christian nationalist is somebody who's a Christian first. So if you're gonna like, and the left has has been very brilliant in using Christian nationalists. They thought that by combining Christian and nationalist, because nationalists have been so pejorative since the end of World War II, they thought that they were cooking. And they're like, oh yeah, you know, nationalism is so bad. So a Christian bad guy, you know, they thought when they say nationalist, they're thinking Nazi. Right, right. But it's like, no, um, actually, national, thank you, thank you, thank you. That's actually you did me a favor. Now I can beautify the term nationalist. Nationalism is actually the best ever. It's kind of the best, it's imperialism is the worst, tribalism is the worst. I'm picking a nation every single time. Well, and then and then you have these like these these moronic definitions, like well, there or or distinctions. Well, I don't believe in nationalism, I believe in patriotism. It's like, okay, well, explain to me the patriotism. Yeah, what's the what's the difference? Right? Like uh patriots are people that die. Have you ever seen the movie The Patriots? You know what I mean? Like bro is like covered in English blood, you know, swinging his tomahawks. Like, do you have a problem with that? Like, did please. What's and and what's the issue with so you have a problem with nations? You have a problem with political machinery? You have a problem with Christians operating within that political machinery. If it wasn't for Christian nationalism, we'd still have slavery. Yes, right? Christian nationalists are the ones that stopped slavery dead in its tracks in this country, right? Christian nationalists are the ones that have done pretty much everything moral, you know, like women's suffrage was a Christian nationalist endeavor. It wasn't a secular humanist endeavor. Civil rights. It was led by Christians, right? You know, like Christian reverends, uh uh uh Southern Baptist reverends and and and Catholic priests, etc. So um I believe that Christians should should be involved in every sphere of society. And uh now there's very there's as I as I pointed out, you have Lutheran Christian nationalism, you have Catholic Christian nationalism, you have Anglicanism. There's all different vibes. Right. All different, you know, like there's no Christian nationalist that necessarily believes the exact same things. You know, that's the blessing of Protestantism, isn't it? It's like where it's we're all kind of fractured and we'd all kind of drive the car a little bit differently. For example, like Stephen Wilson or Doug or Doug Doug Wilson, um, or um what's his name? This other guy that that wrote uh he wrote a book on Christian nationalism. But um, you know, like I would my Christian nationalism would be very different than than um than like John MacArthur's Christian nationalism or or or or um Doug Wilson's Christian nationalism. Um but but it you know I'd I'd want to we'd work democratically and we'd work towards that, but we're not talking about like uh we're not talking about uh forced conversions. We already we already have the bottom line is is that uh there's all different types of national. There's atheistic nationalism that's happening, uh, there's pseudo-Christian nationalism, there's Buddhistic nationalism. We now have Muslim nationalists that are operating in Michigan, um in Minneapolis. Um, you know, they they they clear they like they overtly and clearly all of them want Sharia law.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so the question is not is is nationalism going to win? The question is whose nationalism is going to win out in this country. And I think that the founders uh who were all Christians would have wanted a Christian nationalist country. So that's that's kind of my spiel.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's a mouthful. My my deal with people is like if you don't like Christian nationalism, you're really gonna hate Muslim nationalism. Totally. Because that's coming. Yeah. That's that's what's that's what's cooking. Because like people like, and I I talk about Marxism and you know, critical theory and all of that stuff. But that doesn't have the strength to sustain a government. Right. Now it can go to totalitarianism, communism. Yeah, but it I don't like Islam is gonna be stronger than that progressive liberal ideology that's weak.
SPEAKER_00The Muslims eat them up every single time. They'll eat them up. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so like you have to choose which one you want. I love the the Chesterton quote is like my my love for England helps me understand an Irishman's love for Ireland. Right. Like like it's like my love for my family helps me understand like how I should love my nation. Like I love my church. I'm not against every other church in America. I like this is my church, this is where my family's planted. You know, like obviously I have an allegiance here. It doesn't mean I'm against every other church.
SPEAKER_00I just love this one, and I hope every other church is and and every man should think that his family's the best. Yes. Right. Like if you don't think that your family is the best, well, humbly like knowing, hey, you know, obviously I know in my head that other families, you know, rock and they do things great. But I love my family, and I I think that we do the and I want I don't want to change how we do I I love our culture, I love our traditions. Yeah you're you are you're you're insane. There's something wrong with you if you hate your own.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's like a form of self-loathing. Totally. And uh like what uh the Christian nationalism conversation is so interesting to me because of the hypocrisy that surrounds it, because you have people using the Bible to weaponize their political ideology, but it's only conservatives that get blamed for being a Christian nationalist.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And there is there is no Bible thumper. Right. Like there is no Bible thumper like a liberal politician trying to get elected in a Christian nation.
SPEAKER_00James Talarico right now.
SPEAKER_01James Talarico. Like no one's calling him He's a Christian nationalist. Yeah, no one's calling him a Christian nationalist, but that's exactly what he's doing. He's like, God is uh, you know, got God is no gender or whatever, you know, like he's a trans uh or you know, abortion because he's got a Bible verse for everything. Yes. He's a Christian nationalist. You know, you've gotta you've gotta open support open borders because we're supposed to love our neighbor. Uh you you gotta um you know affirm homosexuality because you know, doing to others is whatever, you know, like there's there's always some Bible verse. Yeah, but then it's like, oh well no, that's okay. But if you're a conservative and you're like, hey, we should use the scriptures to inform a politic, then it's like, oh no, you're Christian nationalists. Right. It's the it's the biggest hypocrisy that like ever existed. Yeah, yeah. Is like, hey, pot, meet the kettle. You you are literally propping up everything that you believe on a faith called Christianity that you've manipulated to support, and that's where it is not Christian nationalism, it's nationalist Christianom, because they've they've elevated a political ideology to try to form and then accuse us of like bowing the knee to Caesar. Yeah, give me a freaking break. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah. They're their their Christianity is so much more informed by their populist politics than it than than than the other way around. And a Christian nationalist is somebody who's like, no, I'm a Christian first, you know. Um but yeah, it's that that's that's you know, there's there's there's a lot of pushbacks that are just caricature push pushbacks. They're they're they're straw man pushbacks, and uh it's difficult to get anybody to debate it because they know they're gonna get their butt handed.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00Uh nobody will debate me about Christian nationalism. I'm nobody. And it's not because I go ad hominem on people, it's because I'm gonna pull their pants down and bubble them. You know, like you got you have no leg to stand on, you know. Like uh I was I was I was in the comments with a with a guy, this guy called the nerdy Christian. He's a a liberal Christian, uh, very liberal political. You mean just liberal? Yeah, totally, yeah. And uh anyways, this guy, um, we're going back and forth in the comments, and I was talking telling him, you know, Augustine was uh a Christian nationalist. And he's like, oh no, he wasn't, no, he wasn't. Oh my yeah, uh yeah, he was, bro. No, he wasn't, no, he wasn't. So then I went and I I I found like um the receipts. Right. You know, so for example, like Augustine, who is like the greatest church doctor, his Christian nationalism was so hardcore that he believed that the government should persecute heretics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he's like, well, you know, I hate it. Yeah, like let the government, which who is the you know, that they're the sword of God, to persecute the Donatists and you know, and people who are who are out of line. I mean it's like that's a level of Christian nationalism that is so elite. Right. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01Like, so even normal Chr like true Christians today would struggle with that kind of nationalism. Yeah, Christian nationalism.
SPEAKER_00But if you if you go, if you work through church history from like the post uh uh Nicene era all the way past the reformers, everybody, I mean, and like the three doctors that I look to who represent three distinct periods because they're they're 500 years apart each, and they they represent such different cultural real like in 500 years from now, America would be I mean it won't exist, but like it wouldn't be even close to what our civilization is like right now, you know what I mean? But Aquina uh so Augustine during the Roman period, he was at the end of the Roman period, right? So still had that Roman vibe. Then 500 years later, you got Aquinas, and he's in the medieval period, completely different cultural, just completely. Then 500 years later, you got Calvin, John Calvin, living in a completely different, you know, right, like different Europe. All three of those guys, the big biggest Christian doctors, thinkers, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, they were all Christian nationalists to to the to the hilled, you know. So so if you're not a Christian nationalist, and you're you're a Christian today, you are on the outside, you're on the periphery of every major Christian thinker throughout the major uh movements of of church history and history in general. So it's fine. If you don't want if you don't, if you don't want to be a Christian nationalist, you want to be a globalist or whatever, you know. Right, right.
SPEAKER_01Just own up to it.
SPEAKER_00Don't admit it. Like correct. It's just like, okay, you know, yeah, I'm diverging from the church. The church is broken, the church is this, blah, blah, blah. Just go and be the anti-church person. Right. But but don't claim to be somebody who is has any type of fidelity to historic Christian Orthodoxy. Yeah. Right? Like the anti-nationalists or the Anabaptists, you know, like the anti-political power. That's that's very hot, you know, these days, too, being an Anabaptist, you know, like all power corrupts, all power is oppressive. You know, there's there's a there's a there's a church in Portland that won't let people become police officers, or they won't let people be, you know, join the military, um, you know, because Tertullian was against it or whatever. And and you know, the the context for him was Rome, the oppressor, but they're a little different. Totally, but they think of America and they think, oh, America's Babylon. Yeah, America's, you know, America is the empire. Totally, yep. Yeah. And it's it's like there's they're just so out to lunch. Um, so you that's fine. But if you want to be that, that's fine. But you are the periphery, and the church was really good for for human history. This has been the church age, has been the best age of human history. In it's it's not even comparable. Ask talk to Tom Holland. You know, he's like, yeah, Christianity rocks. Like it's it's literally the best. And he's not even that, he's not even like he's he's like he identifies as Christian, but he's not a practicing Christian, I believe. Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But he's just like, you know, just like but just on the historical evidence, correct.
SPEAKER_00Like or my one of my favorite um moments uh was last year, was it two years ago, when um Richard Dawkins said that he didn't want to live in an England that wasn't Christian, right? So he's a renowned atheist, if people don't know, yeah, and he's like seeing the Islamification of his homeland, and he's like, This is awful. I want to live in a Christian Britain. It's like, well, you're not helping, are you, bro? No, you know, because it's like you've turned your nation into a bunch of pansy secularist atheists, and now Muslims are gonna win that by that arm wrestle every single time because you're not I you you don't care enough. There's only 14 years of 100 years of history to prove that. Totally. Yeah. The only person that's ever gonna stand up to a Muslim is a Christian. Yes. We're the only ones with the muscle and the and the the and the wherewithal to go, oh yeah, these guys actually suck.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And like you kind of, you know, so that's the the path forward is actually the path back there. But it's just the irony there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's like on one hand, it's like one is just a total lack of awareness of scriptural teaching, like reading the old testament and seeing God draw the boundaries for you. You already did that beautifully. Like God's like, you can go here, you can't go there. Uh it's not just an old testament thing. Uh Paul writes in the book of Acts, I think it's chapter 17, where he talks about God has assigned nations, like their times, their seasons, like there's these there's these sovereign borders. If you don't want nationality, or you know, nations and and nationalism, then you know, you need to own that you want a secular, globalist, empirical government, and then you should probably read the book of Revelation at some point, you know, like to s to see how that wars against the church. Uh uh like there's that that mentality. And then the other part is it's it's a lack of awareness of of of good strong biblical doctrine. The other thing is it's just totally blind to historical reality. Like to say this would be very controversial for people, but America is a Christian nation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's like to its core, to its foundation. Like it was formed by Christianity. It was the the foundations of our nation were Christian men who wanted to establish a place. Like if you look at the roots of our nation, like the the we go back to the revolution, but the revolution goes really back to the Reformation where there was a reformation of like this of what people are afraid of, of like, you know, there were the England had the Church of England because there was a riff with the Catholic Church, and so there's this there's this idea of this merger between uh religion and and state, where at some at times it was heavy-handed. So like the Reformation comes in, you have this Protestant movement, begins to inform like this ideology. I think it was was it Armstrong or Anderson who wrote Lex Rex like is like, okay, well, the king isn't above the law. The law is above the king because the law is established by God. You you just said it, like the church isn't a lower authority to the state, the church is a higher authority. Yeah, well, that's radical if you look at history. Like there was there was the king was the law, and whatever he said went. And then he would like at times there would be moments where they would use religion to prop that up, and like and then and then the Protestant Reformation begins to bring this idea of Lex Rex. Uh John Knox secularizes Lex Rex and like kind of uh kind of reforms it a little bit and and just makes it more secular. Our founding fathers, many of them probably let read Lex Rex. If not, they read John Knox. So they establish a form of government that is built on checks and balances, which is a direct result of an understanding that we're all flawed, all of sin. You can't trust humans. Like we we we suck, so we need checks and balances. We can't have total authority of the government, like we need checks and balances. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, like uh the freedom of religion was not about freedom of like, oh, let's have this pluralistic society. Like the original idea of freedom of religion in America was like, hey, people should be able to choose which denomination they want to belong to. Like every man should be able to follow his convictions. Like our idea of justice was formed under the idea that there is certain inalienable rights that are given, not by government, but by God. Like I don't I don't think people realize the doctrine when we when the our our founding documents say like we have these rights that are given to us. In other words, they're not they're not permitted from a government, they're they're granted from a higher power. Like everything in our declaration of independence, everything in our doc in our in our uh constitution is is a doctrinal statement around how government should be formed that comes from a biblical worldview. And I like people get into this idea of like, oh, we're not a Christian nation. Like we are nothing but a Christian nation. And the more we reject it, the more you see the erosion. Like education was established because they felt like the only way George George Washington said that without without religion, our morals, our our culture and our way of life will will go down the tubes. I'm paraphrasing obviously he didn't say down the tubes. Um but like without without a Christian framework, like George Washington approved federal funds to go mission do do missions in the Native Americans. The first Congress established a Bible, like a an approved copy of the Bible. Like all all of these things where these things were intertwined, and like people have to work out their theology on this, and that is either they're uh and and I'm I'm I'm kyper on this. Yeah and that is like uh like because there's two there's a two-kingdom ideology. It's like okay, the government is a kingdom, the church is a kingdom. Right. I can kind of see that, you know. Um there's uh another like lane out there, which is kind of where we're at, which is like there's uh Christianity is sort of an island and like government is its thing, and there's secular, and then there's religious. Kuiper is like every square inch, there is not one square inch of the universe over which Jesus doesn't cry mine.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that statement messes with me every time I think about it. It's like like, yeah, every square inch, yeah. Like that, like your your PTA, yeah, your HOA, your country club, your your your family, yeah, like the the mayor's office. It all belongs to him. It belongs to him. Yeah. And like that's the root to me of like when we say we're a Christian nation and that there is Christian nationalism.
SPEAKER_00I I I that's fire. Yeah. I I I I absolutely love that. I I think that when you bore down into these issues with people, I think that people have been hoodwinked.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And uh it's kind of like uh when Steven Spielberg is directing Jaws, he had this idea of like not showing Jaws until the very end. And for some reason, when you can't see it, but you can just it's kind of described by all like da da da da da what you can't see is bigger in your mind than what it actually is, you know, and it's scarier. And so Christian nationalism is this thing that nobody seems to ever actually define, they just caricature. Yeah. You know what I mean? So like it's it's not it's never a definition of Christian nationalism, it's it's always uh what Christian nationalism results in. So Christian nationalism is it's it's xenophobic, it's anti, it's anti-immigrant, it's it's the you know, it's Jesus was in. It's like you're reducing everything down to like uh hot button issues rather than like so for example, like with the Japanese. Like, well, if you if you love Japan, yeah, you don't want just anybody coming. That doesn't mean that you're xenophobic. You know what I mean? Like so like Japan right now, they've been they're starting to kick out like a bunch of migrants that have been there, they're just causing trouble. If you walk around Shinjuku. You know, you're gonna see a bunch of African migrants or or or uh Arabic mice migrants, you know, from North Africa or whatever, Middle East. And they just like sell drugs and hustle people and cause cause trouble. And the Japanese are sick of it. Start fake dangers. Totally. So they're starting to like roll these dudes and like send them out, you know, like because they're just like we're we're we don't want this. Like this is this is and and to me, I just go, hey man, you oh you got y'all have a country, go and hustle there. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like go just whatever it is, wherever you're from, just go do that there. But we just don't want we we don't want that. We don't want the crime, we don't want the drugs, like we don't want I'm like pro-Latino, I'm pro any immigration of Christians. Yes. If there's a Christian, and that's the come to our nation. If you're from Africa, come.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00If you're from from South America, come. Like, I'm like, it's not the issue, isn't your skin color, it's not where you're from, it's your ideology. So why do we want hoods from any country with like with ideologies? Like, for example, like the Islamic ideology is America's the great Satan. Yes. Why would we want you here? Yeah. The German um uh uh the German chancellor said, I think, like six months ago, that like they can't arm any of their Islamic population because they're worried it like if they joined the military, yeah, what they would do. It's like, well then why are they in your country in the first place? Right, right? Like our our like we've had a bunch of different issues with Islamic uh military personnel in the United States. Yes, like it's been it's been it's a reoccurring issue. Yes, you know, over and over again. Totally. So uh yeah, it's uh we have to like think about these things, and this might be making you feel uncomfortable if you're watching this podcast and you're like, I can't believe that Nathan is saying this, but it's like, no, it's time to actually have these big boy conversations. Yes. So because our our families, our women and our children are worth it. And right now we have an America that's unsafe. Our downtowns should be the safest place to walk. Your kids, I was talking to my neighbor in in Nashville a couple years ago, and he told me that he used to, when he was 12 years old, his dad would drop him off like in the 70s, and he'd just go watch a concert, and then he'd like hitch hitchhike home, like back to Franklin. Totally. And I remember just going, that's crazy. And then I thought to myself, no, it shouldn't be crazy. That should be normal. Yeah, yeah. The world that we live in should be a place where it's dangerous for bad people to live, right? Because you need dangerous good men to keep dangerous bad men in check. But nobody wants to create danger for public miscreants. People want to make these cities safe. You have all these woke idiot judges letting, you know, that that poor Ukrainian girl that got knife. Oh my god. That dude should have been in, he should have been executed 17 times over. Yeah. He shouldn't have even had hands to pick up a knife. They should have been cut off. Yeah. Right? Like, it and we just we keep on seeing these jail birds. It's catch and release, catch and release, catch and release. The the thing that happened last week in the New York subway. A girl was like, I don't want to put another black man in jail. They let the dude out, and then he goes and kills a 70 odd year old man when he shuts him down the street.
SPEAKER_01It's insanity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And it's like, it's not about race, it's not about any of that. It's about we need safe places to protect the vulnerable. And all this woke garbage is creating an environment where thieves and robbers and murderers and rapists and the scum of the earth can take advantage of our system.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And we have these people that it's it's it's it's unbelievable. So we need to have these conversations. Our children and our and our our our wives and our and our children and our loved ones and our senior citizens, they are worth us having these uncomfortable conversations so that we can protect and love what is behind us. That's I can't remember who said it.
SPEAKER_01I would love to give credit, but they they they're talking about all the all the ideologies that are in America. And it's like they're all parasites on the Christian movement. Absolutely. They all they all siphon off of it. Like even Dawkins saying I don't want to live in a non-Christian. He's a parasite. He's a parasite. Yeah. But that's the like that's what people Christians need to realize. Like the safest place to be for an atheist is a Christian nation. Yeah. The safest place to be gay would be a Christian nation. Absolutely. That's the totally. Like that. Everybody wins when Christians are in charge.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I don't think I will tell you, hey, I think that there's a better way to live, yeah, but I will defend your right. Yes, you know, as an adult.
SPEAKER_01We can call it sin without criminalizing something. Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. Um, okay, hard pivot. Yeah. Like uh I want to get into one cultural uh thing from social media, yeah. And that's this is very hard pivot. Like over the past week, okay, like there's been like there was a post, like the ideal church size is 250 people. Like if you go to a church and the pastor doesn't know you personally, then you're not at a you're not at a real church, you don't have a real pastor.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What's the ideal church size?
SPEAKER_00There is no ideal church size. Yeah. I mean, what do you do when 3,000 people get added to your church? You know, Acts chapter 2. Uh the upper room was 120. Um it could be that Luke was counting the way that everybody else counted. It does say that all the women were there, but he it doesn't, that doesn't mean that he didn't, we he wasn't just naming because uh the in the Bible only men are ever counted and included in a number. Yeah. When you see 120, when you see any number, that's men.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So for example, why would the 120 be including women and the 3,000 would be including uh but the 3,000 is guaranteed gonna be that those are those are males. Those are men. Yeah. So um what I'm saying is that it's probably around 300 that were at in the upper room.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, then you have you know uh Solomon's Portico, which was like this massive colonnade that see that that hosted about it could host thousands of people. Um and the church was gathering in the temple daily and house to house. So at the temple they'd be at Solomon's portico. So there's thousands of people gathering there. Um you know, you see, you see in Acts chapter 13, you see the church is all gathered and they're worshiping and they're ministering to the Lord. It's a repeat of the upper room. So uh we have New Testament uh we have New Testament proof that large mass gatherings, Jesus had mass gatherings, 5,000, 2,000, you know. So um we have we have proof that there were megachurches in the New Testament, and then all throughout church history there were megachurches.
SPEAKER_01Let me let me play devil's advocate. Yeah. Like the the early church, we know that they they met in a suburb, like they met in the living room of somebody's suburban home. There was a guy with an acoustic guitar. Well, some of them did. So temple and house to house. There was a common bowl of hummus. Yeah. Right. They took up a collection, they bought a single mom, you know, a half a tank of gas. That's right. And that was that was the that was the template that was prescribed in the early church. Totally.
SPEAKER_00If you don't read the Bible, that's correct. Totally. If you if you don't read the Bible, you'll think that the church is supposed to give all its money away to to uh to um you know to to to missions or to or to you know that the the church is basically supposed to be a soup kitchen. Right. Right?
SPEAKER_01So if you don't read that's the only form of church that the culture is accepted. Right. If you want to turn the church into a soup kitchen, church that that's fine.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Just exactly. Don't don't disciple and train people and facilitate worship. How dare you?
SPEAKER_01Don't be influential. Yep. Don't have resources. Correct. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Don't hire, don't hire, you know, uh a youth pastor, don't hire people in ministry, don't hire a social media team to help you grow to get your word out so that people know that you exist in the community. You know what I mean? Like yeah, these are these these people are are are morons. Sorry. It just it is like you're not reading the Bible. You just you just have your you just have your uh you have this aesthetic snobbery and these these these religious and spiritual expectations that you did not get from scripture. You cherry-picked them. So yeah, that's that's that's that is the uh that's the pedagogy of fools.
SPEAKER_01And they've never really looked at like some of the most toxic, and this is just personal experience, but some of the most toxic toxic things that I've ever seen were in small churches, yeah. Where there wasn't a spotlight, because there's like size sometimes brings some accountability, like you know, like and there's large churches that have done things that were off the rails or whatever, but like the idea of church size is that you're gonna go to a church and that's it's it's ludicrous. Like some of the things I've seen in small churches would would make people shocked that it happened, but in that little vacuum. And I've I've been in churches that were 50, and yes, they might be aware of one another, but that doesn't mean you have genuine relationships with one another, genuine accountability. Like none of that stuff actually matters. Right. It's like, well, how healthy is the church, how plugged in are you? Are there leaders there to care for you? And is the church faithful in its teaching and administration of the gospel and doing what God's called it to do? Yep, yep, yep. Thank you, man.
SPEAKER_00My pleasure.
SPEAKER_01It's been awesome having you on. Thanks for being with us this weekend. It's been a it's been a blast.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, same. I I have I always had the best. The grouper that I had last night was worth the trip.
SPEAKER_01We'll do it again.
SPEAKER_00Okay. All right. Hey, thank you guys.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much. Hey, would love for you to join us on the journey. If you if you like the conversation, would love for you to subscribe. If you're on YouTube, hit the subscribe button. Like wherever you're watching from, let us know you're there. This would be awesome if you would share it with a friend. Let somebody know about this. Is an amazing conversation that would be awesome to share because I think there's some gonna be some stuff that's challenging in that conversation for a lot of people, but it's big boy conversations we need to be having. But thank you so much for joining us. We'll see it on the arena next time.