Throughout Scripture,
even in the earliest days of the Church, those who spoke God’s truth into
public life were often given names meant to humiliate and discredit them.
The very name “Christian”
was, in its origin, a term of reproach. In
Antioch, where “the disciples were called Christians first” (Acts
11:26), the label was not bestowed as an honor, but as a way of marking them
out — identifying them with Christ in a manner meant to ridicule and
marginalize.
The pattern is hardly
anything new
- The
prophet Elijah was called “the troubler of Israel.”
- The
prophet Jeremiah was accused of weakening the nation.
- The
apostle Paul was labeled “a pestilent fellow,” a “mover of sedition” among the
people.
In each case, the
charge was not merely disagreement; it was an attempt to silence.
The message was clear:
discredit the messenger, and you can dismiss the message.
In our own time, a
similar pattern has emerged.
One of the most
effective ways to silence a Christian voice in the public square today is to
attach a label to it — one that sounds dangerous enough that no further
argument is required. That label is
“Christian nationalism.”
It is invoked in media,
academia, and even within the Church itself. It is used broadly, often vaguely, and almost
always with negative connotations. For
many pastors and church leaders, the mere possibility of being associated with
it is enough to produce hesitation, if not outright silence them.
Part of the label’s
power lies in the word “nationalism” itself. It is not a neutral term in the modern mind. In the 20th century, some of the most
oppressive regimes in history wrapped themselves in the language of national
identity. The party led by Adolf Hitler
was known as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Though its ideology was far more complex and
far more sinister than the word alone suggests, the association remains.
As a result, the term
“nationalism” often evokes images of authoritarianism, coercion, and extremism.
When the word is joined with
“Christian,” the effect is immediate. Suspicion
is cast before any explanation is given. The label does not arrive empty — it arrives
loaded!
But before such a
charge is accepted, it should be examined.
There are, to be sure,
distortions of the Christian faith that wrongly merge the mission of the Church
with the ambitions of the state. There
are those who speak as though a nation could be equated with the Kingdom of
God. The Church is not the state. Neither is the Gospel of Christ advanced by
force.
But this is not what
most faithful pastors and believers mean when they speak to the moral issues of
the day.
To suggest that
applying biblical truth to public life is inherently dangerous is to
misunderstand, even misrepresent, the very nature of the Christian faith
itself.
Jesus Christ is not
Lord over a narrow corner of private devotion. He is Lord of all. His authority extends not only to the heart,
but to the home, to the church, and to the broader ordering of human life. Scripture speaks not only to personal
salvation, but to truth and falsehood, to right and wrong, to justice and
injustice, and to the created order itself.
When Christians affirm
the sanctity of life, they are not engaging in political extremism; they are
affirming that human beings are made in the image of God and, consequently,
life is sacred at every stage.
When they uphold the
biblical definition of marriage, they are not seeking control; they are bearing
witness to God’s design, which cannot be defied without serious consequence.
When they speak about
the importance of family, truth, or moral responsibility, they are not
advancing a political agenda; they are applying timeless truth to present
realities in ways consistent with God’s order and most conducive to human
flourishing.
If such convictions are
now considered suspect, then the issue is not with the convictions themselves,
but with a culture increasingly unwilling to tolerate them.
This, of course, is
where the danger lies.
The label “Christian
nationalism” is often used to turn faithfulness into suspicion, and genuine
Christian conviction into extremism. It
works to silence pastors and other church leaders by discrediting them before
they ever speak. In this way, the label
becomes not merely descriptive, but profoundly strategic. It functions as a preemptive muzzle. When it succeeds, the consequences are
significant.
Pastors who withhold
what God has spoken and avoid applying Scripture to the moral issues shaping
people’s lives do not become more faithful to the Gospel; they become less so. As Martin Luther, the great reformer, warned:
“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest
exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point
which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing
Christ … Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved,
and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if
he flinches at that point.”
The Gospel does not
exist in abstraction. It speaks into
real lives, real communities, and real cultures. It calls sinners to repentance, but repentance
from what? It calls for transformation,
but according to what standard?
If the Church is
unwilling to name the sins that are normalized in the culture, then its call to
repentance becomes vague. If it refuses
to address the lies that dominate public life, then its proclamation of truth
becomes disconnected from reality.
Faithfulness requires
more. It requires the courage to speak —
not carelessly, not harshly, not with partisan spirit, but clearly, biblically,
and without apology where God Himself has spoken. “For we can do nothing against the truth,
but for the truth” (2 Corinthians 13:8).
This is not a call for
the Church to become political in the narrow sense. It is a call for the Church to be fully
biblical. Yet it is also a call to speak
to politics whenever public policy blatantly disregards the moral law of God,
defies His created order, or gives legal protection to what He has clearly
condemned.
It is to declare the
Lordship of Christ in a way that encompasses all of life.
It is to disciple
believers not only in private devotion, but in how to think, live, and act in a
world increasingly at odds with the truth.
It is to understand
that remaining quiet when truth is being openly denied is not neutrality — it
is absence. It is like a soldier who has
abandoned his post.
The accusations may
come. The labels may be applied. This should not surprise us. We should anticipate it.
Name-calling, false
labels, derogatory expressions, and even mockery have been used against
faithful followers of Jesus Christ throughout the Church’s history.
But the question is not
what we will be called. The question is
whether we will be faithful to the one who has called us.
The Church has never
been sustained by the approval of the culture; it has always advanced in spite
of it. Even the “gates of hell shall
not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).
In the early centuries,
Christians refused to bow to Caesar, when it cost them their livelihoods — and,
in many cases, their lives. In a world
that treated human life cheaply, they rescued abandoned infants and cared for
the sick during plagues when no one else would. Their faith did not conform to the culture; it
confronted it.
Centuries later,
believers such as William Wilberforce labored tirelessly against the slave
trade, standing against entrenched economic and social systems because they
believed the Gospel demanded it. Their
convictions were railed against at first. They were zealously resisted. Still, they persevered, and the world is
better for it.
In America, pastors and
churches played decisive roles in movements for justice and moral reform, often
at great personal cost. They did not
wait for cultural approval before they spoke.
They were not trying to
control the culture; they were bearing witness to the truth.
The pattern is
unmistakable: whenever the Church has been most faithful, it has often been
most out of step with the world around it.
This principle does not
change.
- It
does not bend to the pressures of the moment.
- It
does not yield to labels.
- It
does not retreat when challenged.
- It
stands.
And in every generation,
there must be those who are willing to stand with it.
- Not
for the sake of influence.
- Not
for the sake of power.
But for the sake of
faithfulness to Christ, and for the sake of a world that still desperately
needs the light, even when it calls that light darkness and that darkness
light.
Rev. Dr. Kenneth L.
Beale, Jr.
Chaplain (Colonel-Ret),
U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling
Memorial Chapel
