Most American Christians find their political and national identity in the nation of the United States of America. They then find their religious identity in being a Christian. From this perspective, the Christian Church is a religious institution or community. It is there to help facilitate people’s religious or spiritual experiences and to provide for their religious or spiritual needs. The church may influence how its members participate in the realm of politics, but it itself is not a political or national entity. This perspective is based on a fundamental lack of understanding of the politics of God’s Kingdom, and is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Church and what it means to be a Christian.
God’s People, Old and New Testament
The Bible is not a collection of abstract moral lessons, comforting sayings, and religious principles. The Bible is the story of God’s relationship with His creation through His covenant people. In the Old Testament, God’s people are identified with a particular political nation, Israel. Throughout the Old Testament, we see that God’s relationship with the corporate entity of the nation of Israel is always primary, while His relationship with individual members of that nation is secondary. The promised blessings and threatened curses that God gives to His people through His prophets are almost always corporate in nature, and apply to the nation as a whole. Individual Israelites have access to God only because they are members of God’s chosen holy nation and God’s presence dwells in the midst of that nation.
In Old Testament Israel, there is a distinction of role between the political office of king and the priestly office, but there is certainly no “secular” sphere, and the king’s role is just as “religious” as the priest’s role is. Time and again, we see that the king’s (what we would call) “religious” policies have significant positive or negative effects on Israel’s covenant relationship with her God. It is important to emphasize that nothing that the Old Testament has to say about the nation of Israel establishes some general theory about nations and governments which we can then apply to secular nation-states today. For example, the wars carried out by Israel in the Old Testament do not establish that it is legitimate for modern secular nation-states to go to war. Old Testament Israel, as God’s holy covenant people, is a unique entity. If there is any parallel between it and any entity today, it is between Israel and the Christian Church, not Israel and any modern secular nation.
Many Christians seem to think that in the New Testament God created a new, individualistic religion in place of the Old Testament’s national religion of Judaism. However, this is a fundamental error. In the New Testament, there is a significant change in how God’s people are defined, but it is an evolution and reformulation of the Old Testament view of God’s people as a political community, rather than a repudiation of it. The term “church” (Greek ekklesia), after all, is a translation of the Old Testament “assembly” (Hebrew qahal) of God’s covenant people.
In Romans 11, the apostle Paul uses the metaphor of an olive tree to speak of God’s covenant people: gentile Christians are wild olive branches which have been grafted into this tree, while Jews who reject the Messiah are natural branches that have been broken off. If these unbelieving Jews later believe in Jesus, then they will “be grafted into their own olive tree” (Rom 11:17-24). Thus, it is clear that, for Paul, there is one covenant people of God, with continuity between the Old Testament people of Israel and the New Testament Christian Church. Becoming a Christian and being saved are inseparable from becoming part of that covenant people: “If you belong to the Messiah, then you are Abraham’s offspring, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal 3:29). In the New Testament era, God’s people are no longer defined by ethnic descent; they are defined by faith in Jesus the Messiah. But God’s people remain a political community still.
The political nature of church membership can be seen throughout the New Testament. In Ephesians, the apostle Paul declares that the good news for Gentile Christians is that those who “were excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of the promise” “are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household” (Eph 2:12, 19). The apostle Peter tells the church, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession. . . Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people” (I Pet 2: 9-10). Peter goes on to say, “Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles. . . Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles” (I Pet 2:11-12). Here we see how Christians should not regard themselves as truly being citizens of any worldly political entity; rather, they should regard themselves as resident aliens within whatever secular nation they happen to be living in. This is because Christians are citizens of heaven (Phil 3:20), not of any worldly nation or kingdom.
Being a Christian means being a participant in God’s Kingdom. While no simple identification between the visible church and the Kingdom of God can be made, the church is the entity in and through which God’s Kingdom is established in the world. As members of God’s covenant people, the Church, Christians are called to visibly and corporately embody a different politics than the world’s politics: the politics of Jesus.
Christian Identity and National Identity
From a New Testament perspective, the church is not a religious institution that provides an opportunity for individuals to have personal religious beliefs and experiences. Rather, the church is fundamentally a political entity, a holy nation, the people of God. As citizens of heaven, its members find their primary political and national identity in the church as the people of God. Christians should find their political or national identity in a nation-state, if at all, in a very much secondary sense. Thus, American Christians should never, explicitly or implicitly, consider being American as being equally important to being a member of the church in any aspect of their lives.
If a Christian puts a higher priority on American citizenship than on church membership, this is a very serious problem. If a Christian puts a higher priority on knowing American history than on knowing church history, this is a very serious problem. If a Christian puts a higher priority on celebrating American holidays than on celebrating Christian holidays, this is a very serious problem. If a Christian puts a higher priority on celebrating people who died for their country than on celebrating the Christian martyrs who died for the sake of the gospel, this is a very serious problem. If a Christian puts a higher priority on who occupies government offices than on who occupies positions of leadership in the church, this is a very serious problem. If a Christian puts a higher priority on voting in an election than on the worship and sacraments of the church, this is a very serious problem. If a Christian puts a higher priority on the laws of the government than on the theological teaching and discipline of the church, this is a very serious problem. If a Christian puts a higher priority on obeying the laws of the government than on submitting to the authority of the church, this is a very serious problem. If a Christian puts a higher priority on paying taxes than on tithing to the church, this is a very serious problem. If an American Christian feels a greater sense of solidarity with other Americans than they do with Christians in other parts of the world, this is a very serious problem.
Christians should, insofar as it is consistent with the demands of Christian discipleship, do their duty to the country in which they live. However, they must never allow the worldly ideologies of nationalism and patriotism to interfere in any way with finding their primary political and national identity as members of the body of Christ. Christians are part of a global, transnational, multiethnic political community that owes allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ alone. We cannot allow any of the divisions which the world creates–national, ethnic, political, or otherwise–to create any kind of division within this community. God has tasked the Christian community with the mission of proclaiming the good news that Jesus is Lord and advancing God’s Kingdom in the world. We cannot allow any worldly political entity, ideology, or agenda to interfere with this mission.
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