In the first centuries of the Church to become baptized meant to surrender civil office and early on even leaving the military service. It meant deliberately joining the ranks of the politically powerless. No one in the first two centuries of Christians could have imagined an Emperor or civil government being "Christian." Such a thing would be a contradiction in terms. Even Constantine understood this and rather than trying to govern as a baptized Christian deferred Baptism until his deathbed.
Also one cannot minimize the apocalyptic expectations of the early Christians. Christian morality and polity was just an interim ad hoc solution of the problem of living now until what will be arrives. Structural injustice wasn't an issue first because they could not do anything about it and second those structures would be blown apart by the coming of the Kingdom of God. As the end time was postponed with each generation more rationalizations and ethical adaptations had to to be made.
Christian scriptures were even edited to reflect this change of expectations.
From the Edict of Milan forward the sometimes discordant symphony of the Church and State evolved, As long as governments were controlled by monarchs there was a rocky stability in which ordinary Christians just had to pray, pay and obey. The Kings and Bishops sorted things out between themselves.
The emergence of the Protestant "heresies" also fueled republican aspirations and eventually democratic reforms. Social leveling became conceptually feasible. And voila ordinary Christians found themselves with the vote and access to power and all of it filtered through 1st century glasses of the Christian Bible.
The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian churches were slow in reconciling with liberal democracy and still have not fully been able to rest comfortably with it.
So the whole problem isn't just with Christian Nationalism (and its Catholic and Orthodox counterparts) but with the whole conceptually problematic relationship of Christians individually and collectively to political power itself.
Certainly aligning with any political party seems questionable for faithful Christians. Political parties only exist to obtain power usually by any means necessary. If "Athens has nothing to do with Jerusalem" then Jerusalem has even less to do with DC. I would not go so far as to say that Christians should not vote BUT they must always make an honest and prudent vote. Even if a Christian gets to choose which Caesar will rule--- he will still be a Caesar first and foremost.
A Christian always makes a choice for the lesser of two evils. That decision should not be made under partisan constraints. And choosing not to vote is also an option.
Holy Hypocrisy: The Blasphemous Gospel of Christian Nationalism
How Power, Politics, and Prejudice Have Hijacked the Faith of the Carpenter of Nazareth
https://open.substack.com/pub/patricemersault/p/holy-hypocrisy-the-blasphemous-gospel?r=4d7sow&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
In the first centuries of the Church to become baptized meant to surrender civil office and early on even leaving the military service. It meant deliberately joining the ranks of the politically powerless. No one in the first two centuries of Christians could have imagined an Emperor or civil government being "Christian." Such a thing would be a contradiction in terms. Even Constantine understood this and rather than trying to govern as a baptized Christian deferred Baptism until his deathbed.
Also one cannot minimize the apocalyptic expectations of the early Christians. Christian morality and polity was just an interim ad hoc solution of the problem of living now until what will be arrives. Structural injustice wasn't an issue first because they could not do anything about it and second those structures would be blown apart by the coming of the Kingdom of God. As the end time was postponed with each generation more rationalizations and ethical adaptations had to to be made.
Christian scriptures were even edited to reflect this change of expectations.
From the Edict of Milan forward the sometimes discordant symphony of the Church and State evolved, As long as governments were controlled by monarchs there was a rocky stability in which ordinary Christians just had to pray, pay and obey. The Kings and Bishops sorted things out between themselves.
The emergence of the Protestant "heresies" also fueled republican aspirations and eventually democratic reforms. Social leveling became conceptually feasible. And voila ordinary Christians found themselves with the vote and access to power and all of it filtered through 1st century glasses of the Christian Bible.
The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian churches were slow in reconciling with liberal democracy and still have not fully been able to rest comfortably with it.
So the whole problem isn't just with Christian Nationalism (and its Catholic and Orthodox counterparts) but with the whole conceptually problematic relationship of Christians individually and collectively to political power itself.
Certainly aligning with any political party seems questionable for faithful Christians. Political parties only exist to obtain power usually by any means necessary. If "Athens has nothing to do with Jerusalem" then Jerusalem has even less to do with DC. I would not go so far as to say that Christians should not vote BUT they must always make an honest and prudent vote. Even if a Christian gets to choose which Caesar will rule--- he will still be a Caesar first and foremost.
A Christian always makes a choice for the lesser of two evils. That decision should not be made under partisan constraints. And choosing not to vote is also an option.