"We see from history that the nation-state is the
highest form of the idea of security. For Chinese people, the nation-state even
equates to the great concept of all-under-heaven [tianxia, classical name for
China].
Col. Liang and Col. Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare.
As I've argued for many years, nationalism is God's gift
to humanity, to protect it from barbarism and imperialism. That is, to protect
a people from falling back into warring and competing small tribes, or being
subsumed by some version of Babylon; an empire that crushes all national
identity.
Of course, the nation-state and the nation are not
synonymous. The nation-state exists to serve the nation and can take various different
forms over time, from monarchy, to oligarchy, to democracy. But the thrust of
the statement above is pointing to that. The nation-state exists to keep the
nation secure, to protect it from threats.
Hence why the nation and nationalism are under such
constant attack in our modern world. Our world is currently dominated by an ideology
that wants to force all nations to be subsumed to a transnational authority; an
empire on a global scale. This is essentially what globalism is and what it is
seeking to work towards. A world where all nations have been overcome and all
nation-states disbanded, so that a tiny, wicked elite can rule all.
Like all of God's gifts the nation is hated by the god of
this age. Also, like all of God's gifts even many of his own people don't respect this
gift for what it is: a means of limiting evil. Freedom and security flourish in
godly boundaries. Everything God has created for man was designed to flourish
in boundaries, whether money, sex, power, speech, nations or more. Without
boundaries all of these things go haywire and pile harm on top of harm. The
devil wants to break every possible boundary, he's transgressive in his being,
and so are all his ideologies in this world. His deceptions even manage to
persuade many amongst God's flock that to reject these good boundaries is a
good thing to do. It is not.
Thank you, Rev. Matt, for your writing. You've been very helpful to me.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading Joshua according to the lectionary for morning prayer in the Book of Common Prayer, and it's hard because the whole book is like the historical justification for present day slaughter. How do you cope with this?
You make a very important point, Matt. I had intuited that nationalism is primarily about protecting a people, but I did not find anyone else who openly expressed this truth. Until now.
ReplyDeleteChristian nationalism is primarily about Christians protecting themselves and the church.