The Jewish nation into which Jesus was born had both national pride and national hope. In the days of King David and King Solomon, they were one of the greatest nations on earth. The riches in Israel amassed in Solomon’s day, as shown in the construction of God’s temple, almost defied description. To build such a temple today would cost many millions of dollars at the least and more likely, billions. However, by the time Jesus was born in Bethlehem’s barn, the nation had suffered through an inglorious history.
King Solomon died in 931 BC and the once glorious kingdom was divided into two nations soon afterwards, the Northern kingdom then called Israel and the Southern kingdom called Judah. The Northern kingdom had nineteen kings, all of them evil, and the Southern kingdom had twenty kings (one of them Athaliah, a queen), and the majority of them were also evil, excepting a few positive standouts like Josiah and Hezekiah. The sins of both nations multiplied to the point that God allowed Israel to be taken into Assyrian captivity in 722 BC, and over a hundred years later, Judah was taken into Babylonian captivity. A very small percentage from both nations began returning to their homeland roughly seventy years after Judah was destroyed and started the rebuilding process.
However, in spite of their inglorious past, the tragedies of the captivities, and Roman Empire domination after their reestablishment, they amazingly still had strong hopes for their future. Their popular mottoes were likely worded along these lines: “Make Israel Great Again!” There were two primary reasons which enabled them to cling to such hope. One was their propensity to emphasize the glorious parts of their history while ignoring the inglorious parts. Steven in Acts 7 and Paul in Acts 13 knew exactly where to start their speeches to Jewish audiences – with the good parts of their history. Of course, we Americans would never follow such a course in describing our history, would we? More on that point later.
Two, and much more importantly, the hope of Israel was solidly based on God’s promises of raising up a king to sit and reign on David’s throne, through which the world could be influenced by the great God of the universe. After all, the original promises made to Abraham to build their nation included the promise that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3). Further, the very wording of future prophecies by prophets like Isaiah delighted the imagination and multiplied the expectations of the Israelites. Read them.
Isaiah 2:2-4 (NIV)
2 In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. 3 Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 4 He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.
Isaiah 9:6-7
6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.
The arrival and eventual revelation of Jesus the miracle worker served to light the flame of Jewish Nationalism. Finally, a kingly prospect had come with the potential power to break the yoke of Roman domination and to exalt Israel over all the kingdoms of the world! The reaction of the people who saw Jesus feed five thousand hungry followers miraculously now made perfect sense. “After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world’” (John 6:14). What did not make sense was the reaction of Jesus himself, shown in the next verse. “Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.”
Wait – what just happened? Why was Jesus resisting their expectations, expectations based on those marvelous passages we just read in Isaiah, direct prophecies from God? Something was clearly amiss here. Maybe Jesus just wasn’t quite ready to assume the throne of David, perhaps needing to lay more groundwork before he did so. Once he did occupy the throne, he could lead Israel to victory, defeating and hopefully obliterating the evil Roman Empire. Or just maybe God’s plan was all about establishing a spiritual kingdom rather than the physical type David reigned over as king. Oddly, Pontus Pilate understood God’s plan better than the Jewish Nationalists did.
John 18:36-38
36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” 37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” 38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.”
In this passage, Jesus claimed to be a king, Pilate understood that claim, and yet said he found no basis for a charge against him. Had Jesus been claiming to be an earthly king, that would have put him in opposition to Rome, and the Jews would never have needed to urge Pilate to crucify him. He would have done it right then and there as a legal necessity. But it was obvious that he understood Jesus’ words that his kingdom was not of this world, a fact that Jewish Nationalists missed by a wide margin and led them to soon cry out for Jesus’ crucifixion. Jesus had dashed their expectations into a million pieces and left them lying in the dust. How dare he?!
Viewing this whole scenario from strictly a logical human perspective, and including Scriptural prophecies, it is understandable why their shock and disappointment were so great. They were the nation of God and a physical nation at that – which they always had been. What the large majority of them had missed is that there were two nations of Israel running concurrently, existing side-by-side. One nation was outward and physical, while the other nation was inward and spiritual. Most Israelites were in the first one, whereas only a remnant were in the second. Romans 9:6 puts it this way: “For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” Most were Israelites in the flesh, outwardly, but not in God’s spiritual family, his spiritual kingdom.
In the midst of strongly condemning the Pharisees and Sadducees, Jesus said, “And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham” (Matthew 3:9). Read John 8:31-47 carefully. In it, Jesus said to the Jews in that audience “you do not belong to God” (verse 47). This group was a part of the nation of Israel, but not a part of spiritual Israel. This revelation from the lips of Jesus was a horrifying shock, but it shouldn’t have been. Paul in Romans 9:27 quotes: “Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: ‘Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved.’”
All of that said, seemingly supported from Scripture, Jewish Nationalism still was destined to fail. It could not be otherwise, human logic and reason notwithstanding. But whatever else may be said by way of comparison, Jewish Nationalism had far, far more support than does American Nationalism. So, let’s look at the comparison between the two types of Nationalism, separated by two millennia.
American Nationalism
American Nationalism is difficult to define precisely, since there are many forms of it. However, it is most commonly intertwined with Christian Nationalism. The latter term is defined by Mirriam-Webster in this way: “an ideology calling for a government that incorporates or endorses aspects of Christian religion (as by making decisions, laws, policies, etc., in accordance with Christian beliefs, by engaging in government promotion of Christianity, or by legally enforcing Christian doctrine).” Mirriam-Webster also includes two definitions by others.
“Christian nationalism is a presumption that Christians are America’s first citizens, architects, and guardians and that we have the right to define the nation’s culture and identity. And, crucially, it is an assumption that the government has rightful jurisdiction over the nation’s cultural and religious identity.” Paul D. Miller
“Christian nationalism is the use of Christian symbols or teachings in order to prop up a nation-state or an ethnic identity. … Christian nationalism assumes outward conformity enforced by social or political power.” Russell Moore, quoted in The New York Times
The early, more simple understanding of Christian Nationalism by the ordinary citizen would be something along these lines. God ordained the discovery and populating of America to be his special nation to serve his special purposes in the world (which honestly would be democracy and capitalism in the minds of most espousing the concept). Hence, the original constitution of America was based on God’s principles, stated in Judeo/Christian language. Accepting this common underpinning, then America would have been a Christian nation from its very inception, fully destined by God to remain such and to fight off all attempts to pervert it from its original purposes.
When Was America Ever a Christian Nation?
Let’s get biblical here. The term “Christian” denotes biblically a follower of Christ, but not just any follower. It denotes a devoted follower whose life matched Jesus’ statement about the very first step of anyone choosing to follow him. “Then he said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me’” (Luke 9:23). A disciple by definition was one who followed a master or teacher in order to both learn from them and imitate them. The standards of discipleship are high indeed according to the Bible. To use but one statement of these standards, Luke 14:33 will suffice. “In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.”
Although there were earlier time periods in the US when more were striving to live by these standards, surely no thinking person could claim that a majority ever were. According to a Gallup poll in 2024, less than half of Americans who claimed Christianity as their faith viewed it as “very important” to them, reflected in roughly the same percentage claiming church membership. The same poll reports that only 21% attend church services weekly. Based on Jesus’ definition of what it means to be a Christian, statistics alone prove that we are not anywhere near being a Christian nation and we never have been. To top off an already obvious truth, in a list of countries by World Population Review identifying the percentage of their population claiming to be Christian, America ranks 89th on the list. Eighty-Ninth! And yet some claim that we are a Christian nation?
Thankfully, our constitution does reflect Judeo/Christian values more than many nations, and by following them, although in an imperfect manner, God has sent blessings our way. Following God’s principles will bless one’s life, even that of an atheist, but that doesn’t make them a Christian. God has blessed our nation, but not because we are a Christian nation. He blessed the nation of Israel in many ways, but they were never composed of anything near a majority of spiritual Israelites, which were only a remnant. As Jesus said in Matthew 5:45, God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” We have been blessed because he is good, not because we have been good.
A Stricter Comparison
For those who are intent on making comparisons of America to Israel of old, some questions are in order. One, where is any promise made by God to anyone about America which would correspond to his promises to Abraham about the nation to arise from his descendants? Two, where are the prophecies about America that parallel the promises we read about in Isaiah regarding Israel? Three, where in the Bible is there any reference to America at all? Nada!
The comparisons of America to Israel spring from the fertile imaginations of some Americans. We are certainly much like the Israelites in one way, that of highlighting our positive history (and embellishing it considerably) and downplaying and eliminating, when possible, our negative history. When European settlers arrived in the Americas, historians estimate there were over ten million Native Americans living here. By 1900, their estimated population was under 300,000. (Holocaust Museum, Houston). If one is determined to favorably compare the settlement of America to that of Israel, I suppose the slaughter of Native Americans could be compared to the God-directed slaughter of the Canaanites and other nations by Israel.
Then we have what has appropriately been called the “original sin” of America – slavery. We can skip 250 years of slavery’s history in America and jump forward to glorify the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. But then let’s not forget the Black Codes that were in many ways just another mode of slavery, followed by the Jim Crow laws – the effects of which are still with us and among us. I attended a Bible Teacher Conference in Oklahoma City in 2023 and heard a statement by a retired teacher from Oklahoma Christian University. He said that it was only in the past few years that it became mandatory for schools in their state to teach the full story of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 in which 35 blocks of homes and Black owned businesses were demolished and several hundred Black people killed. I couldn’t believe my ears, but a bit of research showed his statement to be true.
The Greenwood District in Tulsa had become a monument to the capability, creativity and grit of the Black community. It was an affluent community in which Blacks owned their own businesses of all types, including their banks and financial institutions. Most White folks have never heard of this massacre, including those living in the state in which it took place. But as of 2019, it is now mandatory that it be taught in their state history. Heartbreaking – the event itself and the purposeful coverup. Simply heartbreaking.
I could go on, and on, and on about the horrific historical events omitted by American History textbooks. I could also go on and on and on about the marvelous achievements of Black Americans whose accomplishments and contributions are left out of those same textbooks. Why the omissions? So simple, isn’t it? Those books were written by White authors.
Do I love my country and appreciate being born here? Absolutely! Am I oblivious to the underbelly of my country’s history, including its very troubling present? Absolutely not! Is it a Christian nation? I’m confident you can answer this question. It is but one empire among many other empires, each with their strengths and weaknesses. There is only one spiritual nation, the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. All physical nations desperately need to be evangelized, and the United States is surely on that list. The Israelite nation of Jesus’ time on earth had far more reasons to be Jewish Nationalists than we have ever had to be American Christian Nationalists. Are we a Christian nation? No, nations cannot become disciples. Every effort to designate a nation as Christian will distort the meaning of the word. But thankfully, Individuals can become disciples and be born again into the kingdom of God, and that kingdom will always serve as a challenge to every nation, including our own.
So, what can we do in these interesting times? We can proclaim the good news of the kingdom and make disciples who will understand what it means to make Jesus Lord of our lives. That is precisely what followers of Jesus are commissioned by him to do (Matthew 28:19-20). Let’s do it and leave behind our mistaken concepts of Christian Nationalism in the process.
