White Nationalism, Nationalism, and Jesus

There has been a lot of sad news going on in the media with the emergence of the "alt-right" and "white supremacists" in Charlottesville, Virginia. After watching a few videos on it, I quite honestly feel sick to my stomach. How can we after the very recent reminder of the rise and fall of the Third Reich, let this surface in our country? I am adamantly for free speech, but fringe activity that speaks to the extermination and expulsion of ethnicity, for no other fact than they are non-European, is disgusting and should not be tolerated. I do not understand how these radical groups continue to gain their appeal.

So the question has to be raised: what is race? I do not believe a naturalistic worldview helps us here, as under their premises 1) humans have no more inherit value than the animals that share our ancestry and 2) certain races may be more pure, or further along in their evolutionary process and therefore can be preferred to before others. Darwin's entire title of the Origin of Species hinged on these two premises (On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life). This atheistic worldview was actually a huge motivator for both the eugenics movement in the early 1900s, as well as the engineers of the Third Reich as they viewed "Arians" as the favored race left to solve the question of the "inferior" Jews or Blacks.

It really is not surprising what the natural conclusions of naturalism are: Take away objective morality, take away all value on humanity in the form of the image of God--and what do you expect?

But we as Christians cannot buy into this "race" nonsense. A race is nothing more than a group of people with a lot of shared genetic attributes passed down over time, which manifests itself in similar external traits. Over time, if a lot of people in a certain location continue to reproduce with each other--certain attributes will be more obvious and distinctive in them when compared to a different group of people in another area of the world doing the same thing. One group might grow to have green eyes, curly hair, and light skin--and over time another group might have straight hair, blue eyes, and tan skin. Those shared attributes is all that a "race" is, and one "race" has absolutely no inferiority or superiority to a "race" with differing characteristics. From a Christian worldview we understand that we are all stamped with the image of God, and it is only by nature of that eternal stamp on our shared parentage that are we are all as humans equally valuable. We must judge people not on the basis of their features or origins but on the basis of their humanity.

So talk of "white nationalism" is really ridiculous, revolting nonsense. I can understand plain and simple "nationalism", where the interests of the citizens are put first and where immigrants must integrate into the general citizenry of the nation; where there is a common morality everyone must buy into; or even where there is a common language that everyone must speak.

In fact, in The City of God, St. Augustine discusses the ancient politician Scipio's definition of a republic: "'The people' he defines as being not every assemblage or mob, but an assemblage associated by a common acknowledgment of law, and by a community of interests." Augustine later goes on to quote the poet Ennius who said, "Rome's severe morality and her citizens are her safeguard." This common morality, or sharing of common values of a united people is important to every nation, for it keeps us from being a conflicted mob; but that commonality is drastically different than the evil restrictions of some "common race" to that republic.

Theodore Roosevelt was essentially a "nationalist" when he said: "In the first place an immigrant who comes here in good faith and becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such a man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's in every way becoming an American...and nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...we have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...And we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Roosevelt believed that any immigrant could come to America and could expect the same treatment as anyone else, but that immigrant would have to become an American. He would have to integrate himself into the "American" system of values which is the safeguard of any republic.

Whether we agree with Roosevelt or not, we can all agree that he does well to not impose some physical trait (like skin color) or some place of origin (like non-Europe) and arbitrarily use those conditions as standards for non-admittance into or non-acceptance within the country. Roosevelt may have been a nationalist, but he was never a "white nationalist". That would be madness; an insult to humanity. And if an insult to humanity, an insult to God, whose image is on humanity.

Furthermore any tribalism that goes to say that my race (remember, people who share my external, genetic characteristics) is superior to another race--has absolutely no place in Christianity--where our Savior was a Jew from Nazareth. Where we are called to go into all the world preaching the gospel, and making disciples of every nation! Where we await an eternity where we will praise our Savior ALONG SIDE members of every tribe, every tongue, every nation. If you do not like people of other ethnicities now, can you expect to enjoy the heavenly throne room in the eternity to come? I think not.

So while it should not surprise us that there are evil people in a broken world who look to find any excuse they can to hate and divide, we as Christians need to be the voice of truth. The impetus of the great commission demands that we declare the glorious gospel to people of all nations and races, for the universal body of Christ is not limited to one small, monochromatic group, but is extended to a heterogeneous mixture of peoples of all types and backgrounds; a vast oil painting with vibrant and contrasting colors--all united by one Spirit, and one Savior. It is this body that holds the keys to unlocking doors of division. It is this Body that must stand united in love as a testimony to a world that is tearing and will continue to tear itself into shreds of division.