It’s all the rage on the American Left, criticizing Christian Nationalism. And rightly so.
I see two main critiques of Christian Nationalism on the Left:
The Christian Left condemns Christian Nationalism theologically, a Christian heresy that, according to the Baptist Joint Committee’s “Christians Against Christian Nationalism,”
“ … seeks to merge Christian and American identities, distorting both the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy. Christian nationalism demands Christianity be privileged by the State and implies that to be a good American, one must be Christian. It often overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation. We reject this damaging political ideology and invite our fellow Christians to join us in opposing this threat to our faith and to our nation.” (https://bjconline.org/christians-against-christian-nationalism/statement/)
Within Christian Left circles, we’re grateful to Don Wagner, Stephen Sizer, Naim Ateek, Robert Smith, and others who have detailed the various iterations of the Zionism of the Christian Right. And in the last decade or more, Wagner, Mitri Raheb, Munther Isaac, and others have also examined the Niebuhrian, Bruggemannian theological Zionism of the Christian Left. Core to Christian Right ideology and worldview is the theological, moral, political, economic, and even military support for Zionist Israel.
And the secular Left condemns Christian Nationalism politically and socially, according to the Center for American Progress, as:
“ … the anti-democratic notion that America is a nation by and for Christians alone. At its core, this idea threatens the principle of the separation of church and state and undermines the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It also leads to discrimination, and at times violence, against religious minorities and the nonreligious. Christian nationalism is also a contributing ideology in the religious right’s misuse of religious liberty as a rationale for circumventing laws and regulations aimed at protecting a pluralistic democracy, such as nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQI+ people, women, and religious minorities.” (https://www.americanprogress.org/article/christian-nationalism-is-single-biggest-threat-to-americas-religious-freedom/)
Both the Christian and secular critiques of Christian Nationalism are important and necessary.
But here’s what bugs the living hell out of me.
Neither of the above, nor most other critiques/condemnations of Christian Nationalism make the connection to its soul sister, Jewish, Christian, or secular Zionism. The reasons for this are many and have been thoroughly discussed. The Christian Left is silenced partly by what Marc Ellis called, “the ecumenical deal,” what Mark Braverman even more pointedly called, “the fatal embrace,” and Christian guilt about the church’s ecclesiastical, political, and theological complicity in the holocaust. The secular Left, too, is silenced partly by its neoliberal political American exceptionalism, the influence of the Israel Lobby, as well as Western secular holocaust guilt.
Christian Zionism, if it ever was, is no longer the weird 19th-20th century theological heresy of a marginal Left-Behind crowd. It’s in the halls of Congress, in statehouses, courts, local schoolboards, and more, full-throatedly supported by a narcissistic and opportunistic President;. And it’s no longer simply about bible prophecy about rapture and the endtimes, it’s morphed politically beyond a racist agenda at home and American manifest destiny to Israeli expansionism, now including Syria, Lebanon, and Iran, and for the last three years, genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the Occupied West Bank.
Indeed, in a supreme irony, from the first Puritan settlers on American soil to the Westward expansion, the biblical example of ethnic cleansing of the indigenous peoples of Canaan was used as a model, which then in turn, the American settler experience, its successes, its failures, was used by modern-day expansionist Israel for the last 78 years of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and now genocide.
Expansionist borders; manifest destiny, enabling, even partnering in the extermination of indigenous peoples; hate, suspicion, perpetual war, and destruction – all these serve a purpose in twisted Christian Nationalist Zionist political theology.
Sure, there have been a few brave souls, but you’d be hard-pressed to find too many anti-Zionist expressions among the millions of participants in the thousands of No Kings Rallies in the last two years. Fortunately, thankfully, within the American church, there are a few exceptions: the United Church of Christ Movement for Palestinian Solidarity (MPS), Presbyterian Church USA Palestine Justice Network (PJN), United Methodist Church United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR), Christians for a Free Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Roman Catholic, Franciscan Action Network.
But let’s be clear, a racist, expansionist, manifest destiny Christian Nationalism and a racist, expansionist, manifest destiny Jewish and Christian Zionism are two sides of the same coin, both death cults, a reverse Midas touch for everything it contacts. And Christian Nationalism and Zionism – Jewish, Christian, and otherwise – are both theological heresies and a betrayal of democratic principles. Jewish Voice for Peace summarizes it succinctly, “Christian Zionism is the foreign policy of White Christian Nationalism, and must be part of the fight against Christian Nationalism.”
Any critique of Christian Nationalism – religious or secular – that doesn’t also include a condemnation of both US political, economic, military support and diplomatic cover; and the church’s theological and economic support for Zionist Israel, no matter how well meaning and effective, loses its credibility and falls far short to being the harbinger of the radical prophetic edge it purports to be and ushering in the needed moral and political revolution our country needs at this point in our history.