Listen to the Word of God: 62 Scripture passages that refute 'Christian' Nationalism - #31 John 17:20-23

John 17:20-23 (NIV)

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

"Oh, we're halfway there, O-oh, living on a prayer..."  That is of the chorus of "Living on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi, one of my favorite songs and one I invariably try to sing at Karaoke (that key change is brutal).  I started this series of 62 posts about "Christian" Nationalism, each with a specific verse of Scripture that speak against that corrupt idea, on August 9th of 2022.  I'll admit, after a steady stream of posts my focus wavered and for much of 2023 has been replaced with the need to combat the spread of Torah Clubs [The Dangers of the First Fruits of Zion and their Torah Clubs} in our area.  But, once you've taken up a task, it is hard to let it go.  This post, then, marks the halfway point, the rest will continue to be created as time and my need to focus on other things permits...

The passage from John's Gospel is Jesus' prayer for unity among his followers offered up to the Father on the eve of his Passion.  One of the remarkable things about this particular prayer at this particular time is how laser focused it is upon the need for unity among the body of believers who would soon be called Christians, drawn together as part of the Church that Jesus founded to continue his work after his return to Heaven.

OK, so Jesus wanted his followers to "be one," what does that have to do with "Christian" Nationalism?  A whole lot if you take a few minutes to think about it.  One example will illustrate why Nationalism, especially "Christian" Nationalism is antithetical to Jesus' prayer: During WWI, tens of millions of British, French, German, Italian, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and American young men tried to kill each other.  That the vast majority of these young men claimed to be followers of Jesus Christ, who were being order to try to kill other followers of Jesus Christ, didn't matter at all to those in power because the enemy belonged to a different nation.  One's national allegiances superseded, nay even extinguished in this case since it condoned killing other followers of Jesus, one's faith.  This wasn't the first time, similar wars had raged since the break-up of the Roman Empire, pitting Christians against each other in order to further the claims of their feudal lords, kings, and eventually nation-states.  

There isn't an objective way to look at Church History without concluding that God would consider this bloodshed to be sinful.  One may be able to defend those who fought in defense of their family and community, but that rationale evaporates in every other scenario, not to mention the wanton rape and pillaging that walked hand-in-hand with these wars.  It is impossible to say that participation in this militant violent behavior made those who did so more Christ-like.  Perhaps the horrors of violence brought some few to repentance afterwards, but God is not in the business of using evil on the chance that some will be repelled enough by it that they turn and seek the light.

If, then, one accepts the premise of "Christian" Nationalism, that our allegiance to Jesus Christ must be in some fashion melded with, even subsumed to, our allegiance to our country, there is NO hope of unity within the Global Church.  What we will end up with is a host of church bodies split along political lines, and a never-ending sorry tale of rivalries and violence between them that mirror those of the nations to which they belong.

A current example: Why do you think that the Russian Orthodox Patriarch has dubbed Putin's illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine as a Holy Crusade?  [Moral Clarity: God help us if we can't see that Vladimir Putin and his war are Evil.]  The sad truth is, the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church has chosen the kingdom of this world, and in so doing, has made a mockery of its claims that it is a defender of Christianity.

After supporting Ukraine invasion, Russia's Patriarch Kirill criticized worldwide - by JONATHAN LUXMOORE for National Catholic Reporter, March 15, 2022.

The Church cannot fulfill its mission if it allows lines drawn on a map to divide those whose first allegiance must be to Jesus Christ, yet another reason why "Christian" Nationalism is biblically untenable. 

The Reformation - How We Got Here

            Unity has always been a concept that it was easier for the Church to proclaim than to actualize.  When the Apostle John wrote his first epistle, as the first generation of Christianity came to a close and the second non-eyewitness generation came to the fore, it was already necessary for him to counter the heretical claims of the Gnostics by reaffirming the humanity of Jesus, both before and after the resurrection, as the one, “we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched.”  Three centuries later, the Arians would put forth the heresy that Jesus was less than God, the Church, now the official religion of Rome after remarkable growth from humble beginnings, responded under the leadership of men like Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, ultimately leading to the councils of Nicea and Calcedon where the theology of the person of Christ; handed down from the Apostles, was codified.  From that point forward, only fringe groups would challenge the humanity and deity of Christ, but even with theological unity regarding Jesus, division was still coming, developing along cultural lines as the Latin West drifted away from the Greek East.  The Emperor Diocletian had already administratively split the Roman Empire in half in A.D. 284, after the fall of the empire in the West in the 5^th century, the Latin Western Church and the Easter Greek Church grew more and more estranged.

          The Protestant Reformation, which began 500 years ago on October 31^st, 1517, was not the first major division within the Church, that occurred formally in A.D. 1054, and is known as the Great Schism.  In 1054, the functional East-West divide was made formal when the legate of Pope Leo IX excommunicated the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius (Keroularios), who in return excommunicated the representative of the Pope.  There were theological and cultural issues that divided the two sides, but the proximate cause of the split was a dispute over power; Leo IX was seeking to assert universal papal authority, the bishops of the East, the Patriarch of Constantinople in particular, refused to accept that claim.

          While the Eastern and Western Churches went their own way, struggling to make a unified response to the rise of Islam and deepening their animosity when the army of the 4^th Crusade turned under Venetian prompting from Jerusalem to sack Constantinople, new issues of theology and politics developed in the West that would lead toward the spirit of reform which Martin Luther inherited.  The West had never been politically unified after the fall of Rome.  In the East, the Emperor of Constantinople held authority over the Patriarch, but in the West the authority of the bishop of Rome had been challenged by Charlemagne and his successors, the Holy Roman Emperors.  Dynastic feuds kept Christian vs. Christian warfare in the West at endemic levels as families vied for power, and the various kings claimed the right to choose their own bishops, typically choosing a family relative regardless of qualifications, as an extension of those power struggles.  On multiple occasions, the right to install a bishop was asserted against the claims of kings, by a Pope, leading to episodes like the excommunication of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV in the 11^th century, who in response led his army over the Alps to besiege Rome, seeking to depose Gregory VII and replace him with a Pope who would do his bidding.

          The Fall of Constantinople in 1453 caused a flood of Greek speaking refugees to head west, sparking a renewed interest in the original Greek of the New Testament.  The Dutch priest, Desiderius Erasmus published his Greek New Testament in 1516, spurring on those who desired the Scriptures in the vernacular, for only the educated few could read Jerome’s Latin Vulgate.  In the 16^th century, ideas spread much more rapidly than in the past thanks to the invention of a workable printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1455; by 1500, 10 million books had been printed in Europe.

          Add to this mix of political turmoil and warfare, and ongoing struggles for power between kings and popes, a series of would-be reformers like the Englishmen John Wycliffe and the Czech Jan Hus.  Reforms did occur within the Church, but the pressure was building for more substantial changes, and that pressure burst forth when a young German priest named Martin Luther issued a call for debate concerning issues that troubled him regarding salvation theology.  Luther had been inspired by his readings of Saint Augustine, as well as Erasmus’ Greek edition at Romans 1:17 where the Vulgate’s Latin read “Justitia”, but the Greek read “dikaios”, that is righteousness rather than justice.  This translational nuance spoke to Martin Luther, leading him to issue his challenge by posting his 95 objections on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg on October 31^st, 1517.

          At this point, Martin Luther was no revolutionary in intent or spirit, merely a reformer, like many within the Western Church.  One hundred years prior, Jan Hus had been promised safe conduct to discuss his proposed reforms, by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund himself, but had been burned at the stake anyway as a heretic.  Knowing this, Martin Luther still came to Worms to meet with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Pope Leo X’s representative, Johann Eck.  Asked by Eck to recant his writings, Luther refused saying, “Unless I am convinced by testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason, I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God.  I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against my conscience.  May God help me.  Amen.”

          The tribunal then issued the Edict of Worms, declaring Martin Luther to be a heretic and outlaw and excommunicating him.  Luther would have ended like Jan Hus, but several German princes, opposed to Charles V and seeking to curb his authority over them, sheltered Martin Luther, allowing him time to translate the Bible into German, and time for the spark which he had inadvertently lit, to fan into flame and turn from reform to Reformation, leading quickly toward conflict and war as Luther’s ideas spread throughout northern Europe, dividing the Western Church along roughly north-south lines. 

          How did we get here, how did the Church become divided, east-west, and then 500 years later, north-south too?  Theology was a necessary part of it, interpretation and application of Scripture being a task that often leads to disagreement, even among otherwise like-minded people.  Cultural and linguistic differences were also a part, when the fault lines did occur, there was a reason why they split so neatly where differences already existed.  But in the end, the one avoidable factor, the one factor that should have been absent within the Church, was the pursuit of power.  Fallible people lead the Church, they always have, and they are not immune to the siren’s call of power.  On all sides men made choices tainted by their own greed for power, and in the end, it was the unity of the Church of Jesus Christ which paid the price.

          Let us, then, recognize our theological and cultural differences, welcoming honest and respectful study, dialogue, and debate as we together attempt to be what the bride of Christ ought to be, but let us fully reject as folly unbecoming of servants in the kingdom of God, the desire for power which led our ancestors in the faith toward division, and ultimately toward violence and war amongst themselves; for regardless of what they did, and what we here do today, “God’s truth abideth still: His kingdom is forever.”

What is your authority? A historical parallel to the Protestant - Catholic/Orthodox divide

I love the way teaching my two Bible studies each week sometimes causes new ideas or connections to pop into my head in the middle of trying to explain a particular text of Scripture.  That phenomenon happened today allowing me to see for the first time what I think is a useful analogy for understanding the divide between Protestants and Catholic/Orthodox Christians over the issue of authority.

In the first century, Jesus confronted two of the groups of religious leaders within Judaism who had radically different approaches to the way in which they defined authority: The Sadducees and the Pharisees.  The Sadducees believed in the authority of the written text of Scripture alone (minus any oral tradition) and preferred to focus upon the Pentateuch (the five books of Moses) within the Tanakh (the 24 books of the Hebrew Scriptures).  The Pharisees, by contrast, accepted the authority of the Tanakh and also that of the Talmud and Midrash (the many generations worth of rabbinic commentary upon, and interpretation of, the Tanakh).

Is the parallel obvious yet?  Protestantism was founded upon the principle of Sola Scriptura (along with Sola Fide and Sola Gratia, "Faith alone" and "Grace alone"), that is the idea that Christian theology must rest solely upon the Scriptures themselves.  The Catholic and Orthodox traditions accept the authority of Scripture, but in conjunction with the teachings developed over time by the Church (through the various councils, synods, etc.)

Is it any wonder that Protestants and Catholics/Orthodox Christians have a hard time finding agreement upon a host of issues?  If the authority to which we must appeal is not the same, how can the answers derived from it be consistent?

That we have a different viewpoint of authority is no new observation, Martin Luther himself realized five hundred years ago that he was rejecting the authority of the Church in favor of that of Scripture alone.  I'm sure somebody has previously noticed the parallel between the Sadducees/Protestants and Pharisees/Catholic/Orthodox in the realm of authority, but the connection was new to my brain today, so I thought I'd share it.

Just as a reminder, Jesus had plenty of criticism for both the Sadducees and the Pharisees, something to keep in mind when we're tempted to climb up onto a high horse.  Both groups appealed to a different authority, and both were wrong in their conclusions/attitudes, both were in need of reform to reclaim the heart which God requires of his people.