Christian nationalism grows out of and is undergirded by Christian familialism. There can be no Christian nation where there are not countless Christian families. And where there are happy and holy Christian families, the broader Christianization of the nation is sure to follow. Christian nationalism starts around the dining table. It starts in neighborhoods and schools and sports leagues. It starts in our marriages and with our children. It starts with Christian men launching and growing Christian businesses. It starts with living as Christians in our own daily lives and flows out from there. More than of any of these, Christian nationalism starts with faithful Christian churches, engaged in reverent worship, with biblically-grounded preaching, serious pastoral care, effective evangelistic and mercy ministry plans, and the faithful execution of church discipline. These are the foundational building blocks of a Christian nation and Christian culture. Do not despise the day of small beginning; the seed of the kingdom grows into the greatest of all trees.
It is a mistake to think of Christian nationalism as some kind of political program. A nation is about so much more than just its politics. Christian nationalism is not mainly about passing certain laws or electing certain candidates. It’s not primarily about political power. It’s mainly about a way of life. It’s about a kind of culture. It’s about truth, goodness, and beauty. It’s about flourishing families, quaint towns, and safe cities. It’s about knowing our history and revering the heroes who made our civilization what it is. It’s about symbols and stories that celebrate all God has given to us in his providence. It’s about the kind of world we want our children to grow up in, and the kind of country we want to leave to our grandkids. It’s about being men and women who are worthy of our ancestors who built Western civilization, and it’s about not squandering all that has been given to us so that we can pass it on to future generations. It’s about having a place to call home — not only a domicile in which to sleep and eat and work and play, but a land and culture we can call home because we feel truly at home in them.
Yes, Christian nationalists talk a lot about politics. But that’s incidental and circumstantial. Political power matters, and we do need to use it in just and beneficial ways, but it’s not the main thing. In better times, politics would get very little attention. We talk about politics today for the same reason and in the same way a man with the stomach bug has to talk about his digestion — not because he wants to, but because he has to if he wants to diagnose the problem and get better. But the reality is that civil power is only a very small piece of what constitutes a Christian nation, and not even the main piece.
More than anything else, Christian nationalism is about a people and a place tied together by love. It’s about having a land and culture and family and church to call home. It’s about a home this side of our final home in the new creation.
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