True Christianity Fosters Nationalism. This statement should not be controversial in the slightest. Firstly, because Christianity is a religion of truth, and it is true that nations exist, that they were created by God’s intention, and that they are good. Therefore, nationalism is a righteous cause for truth. The nations will be there at the end of the world and beyond (c.f. Rev. 22), they are going nowhere. And secondly, because this is demonstratable from history that true Christianity fosters nationalism. There are numerous examples of Christian missionaries going into heathen lands and in the process of evangelism stoking the seeds of nationalism amongst the peoples there.
What I did not know was how integral the Church was in doing just this in the Arab world, including with the Palestinians......
.......There you have it. While immature and seriously uninformed Christians today argue online that Christianity has no connection to nationalism, missionaries of the past were leaps and bounds ahead of them in fostering nationalism as a direct result of their gospel preaching. Christ redeems us from sin and from worldly oppressors, in the case of the Arabs it was the Ottoman Empire. There is no greater slayer of tyrants than Jesus Christ.
Also to proclaim that Jesus is the saviour of the world is not to simply proclaim him as the saviour of individuals, but of nations,
“1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever” (Rev. 22:1-5).
The idea that God just wants to save individuals and strip them of their national identity is simply not true. That is in fact what Babylonianism, or imperialism does. Empires want all peoples under their sway to have their nationalities suppressed and subsumed into the imperial whole. Hence Gauls, Britons, Romans, Iberians, Greeks, Etruscans and more were simply “subjects of Rome” and later Romans by decree or paper citizenship. The practice of empires is to deny national identity and with it national sovereignty, because both things are threats to its power and legitimacy.
Christianity on the other hand proclaims the truth and someone’s national identity, or ethnicity, is real and therefore true and good, and should not be supressed. And as we know from the Bible God wants all peoples to be ruled by their own......
......The Nation is not the Church and the Church is not the Nation. They both exist as separate entities. However, someone can be a member of both, and in the Church ethnicity is no barrier to full membership in Christ. One should not confuse the two. Christians should stop telling the falsehood that Christianity opposes nationalism, this is just historically and biblically ignorant.
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