Christian nationalist or not, that’s the Bible’s teaching.

The Presbyterian Church of America is the largest Christ-accepting Presbyterian denomination in America, and it is the denomination I am currently a member of, in the institutional sense. The PCA is also currently in the process of making a ‘report’ on Christian Nationalism. I eagerly await that report because, of course, I will be immediately agreeing with it when it comes out, no matter what (ha, no). The question which too many forget to ask, however, is what ‘Christian Nationalism’ is. Particularly pressing, at times, is the question of what ‘promoting the true religion,’ bandied about on a historical basis as well as a theological one, actually ought to mean.

One aspect of ‘Christian Nationalism,’ as it applies to me, is the careful application of all Scripture’s commands for the civil government, to the civil government. In the context of the Christian civil government’s duty to ‘promote’ the true religion, that duty consists in large part of enacting justice in the civil realm, the job which, as per Genesis 9:5-6, defines the civil government as an institution. But another aspect of the duty emerges from an inspection of the Old Testament (where most but not all texts on the government’s duties appear, due in part to the government being, y’know, actually Christian, if often only nominally).

That other aspect of the civil government’s duty is its duty to proclaim the history of its nation in light of God, to proclaim God’s law, and to call the people to repentance, to righteousness. This duty appears clearly in Joshua 24 and 2 Kings 22-23, both of which are obviously presented as good examples (the first being indeed the direct command of God to Joshua).

In Joshua 24, the civil governor, Joshua, calls Israel before him for a remarkable purpose: to declare their history with God and ask of them whether they will cleave to God or leave Him. We know that Joshua acts here as the civil governor, not as an ecclesiastical officer, for three reasons. First, Joshua was of the tribe of Ephraim (Num. 14:8,16), not Levi (Ephraim, by the bye, is only second to Judah in its connection to the civil government and leadership of Israel). Second, he is distinguished from the priest carefully, as in Joshua 19:51. Third, those he calls come before him not just as “tribes” and “elders,” both potentially ecclesiastical terms, but as “judges,” a clearly civil office (Ex. 18).

In 2 Kings 22-23, Hilkaiah finds the Book of the Law during the Temple renovations and brings it to Josiah, who immediately send for all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem (23:1); the king then goes “up to the house of the Lord, and with him all the men of Judah… all the people, both small and great” (v2). Why? So that the king may read the “Book of the Covenant”- Israel’s history and the covenant which runs through that history- to the people.

In both cases, the civil governor righteously (in the tenor of the text, not merely my judgement) takes the responsibility to (1) declare his people’s history with the Lord; (2) proclaim the terms of the covenant with Him; and (3) call for return to that covenant. We can only conclude that the civil government has a prophetic role of calling for repentance. In neither case is assent or repentance coerced, note; Joshua (in Josh. 24:19-25) repeatedly warns the people of the gravity of their words, letting them consider if they truly desire it. This duty of promotion is to declare, not to impose. But it is a duty of declaration which we ought not to bypass, a part of that doing of good which Romans 13:1-8 hints at.

God bless.