Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Today we've got with us Tom Askell. We're going to talk about Christian nationalism, the ups, the downs, the controversies, and the agreements, and some suggestions. I hope you enjoy the discussion. Jason, for quite a while the big blow up on the internet, Twitter, and the Twittersphere has been Christian nationalism.

So it's great to have Tom Aschall On with us, you know, he just wrote this book the perils and promises of Christian nationalism Love the book wanted to have him on to talk about it Of course because you know his view is my view So So let's start also by just commending on YouTube by the same title, The Perils and Promise of Christian Nationalism, you'll find a message by Tom Askell, which I'm assuming there's lots of crossover and content there, so found that very helpful. Yeah, thank you. That's right. And this little booklet came out of that talk and so I was able to elaborate a little bit on some of the things that I did. That talk was a part of a pre-conference that I did with Vody Balkham before the National Founders Conference two years ago, I think.

He and I were discussing, you know, man, what should we do on this, you know, couple hours that we have before the conference officially kicks off? And people were hot and heavy, beginning to talk about Christian nationalism. We said, okay, well, let's just, let's do a pre-conference on Christian nationalism. So that's what we called it. We didn't say we were for it or we were against it.

And once we announced it probably six or seven months before the conference, I started getting emails and direct messages and texts and phone calls saying, I can't believe you're a Christian nationalist. Why would you be for this? And other people saying, you know, how can you be against Christian nationalism? You know, it's terrible. And we hadn't said one thing, either pro or con, but it was a commentary on just the kind of volatile issue that it has been.

And people immediately line up on one side or the other, largely based upon presuppositions and what they've experienced or heard. And then they start responding to that. And a lot of people, even some really good brothers, are talking past one another on this subject. And so I'm glad we dealt with it. And then out of that, it just seemed fitting to try to put some of my thoughts in writing in this little booklet.

So that's how that came to be. Yeah, Tom, could you talk a little bit about some of the different ways that the term Christian nationalism has been used? Because, you know, my thought all along is what do you mean by Christian nationalism? It's this term that can mean almost anything. So could you just talk about the different ways that this term is used?

Yeah, well it's used to defend everything from as Lauren Boebert, I think she's the congresswoman from Colorado says, there have only been two special nations ever in the history of the world. That's Israel and the United States, you know, and they're both special to God. Others have said that America is a nation in covenants with God, or that America has something beyond a sense of the role in God's kingdom, beyond other nations. And so anything like that that sees America as having a place specifically in God's redemptive history that's on par with or maybe supersedes Israel in the old covenant era. I have great problems with that, but some people will have that mentality when they talk about Christian nationalism.

This makes us Christian nationalists. Others have said, well, Christian nationalism is just another expression of white supremacy and heteronormativity and all of the things that we find offensive in our postmodern age that is riddled with Marxist ideologies. And so, you know, Christian nationalism becomes this almost wax nose that gets put on the face of anything that you want to be opposed to. So there's a lot of bad stuff that is flown under the banner of Christian nationalism, both by critics as well as some who would openly identify themselves as proponents. And I reject the worst, both of those extreme camps.

I think that's the wrong way to think about this issue. You know, in your book, you say that this is a play run by progressives. Of course, you're talking about this view, you know, that it's a white supremacy, heteronormativity thing. Talk to us about that. How is it a play run by progressives?

Yeah, well, the reason that I come to that, and it's a speculation, but it's a theory, I would call it, and I'm open for people to debate it. But you look at the people who five years ago and beyond and since, were coming out advocating critical race theory, white fragility, intersectionality, anti-racism, all of this stuff that we tried to call attention to and say, man, this is bad. This is Marxism. Don't let this into your churches. 2019, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution affirming critical race theory and intersectionality over the protests of a few of us who were trying to keep that from happening.

So that's five years ago. Now you fast forward today, who are the people that are coming out guns blazing against Christian nationalism as they define it? It's the same people that were promoting the critical race theory and intersectionality. And so what I believe, at least as a good theory to consider, is now that we're in a time when no self-respecting evangelical will say, oh yeah, I think critical race theory is a great thing, or I think intersectionality is a great thing, because that has been completely debunked. And by God's grace, enough light has been shed to thinking Christians realize, no, no, no, that's a bad idea.

Well, now it's with Christian nationalism. These are the guys that want to pretend that America is somehow an inherently coveted nation before God, and they're driving all their ideology, they're more political than Christian, all of the accusations that have been made and trying to silence Christians from saying things that up until 10 minutes ago, thoughtful conservative Christians were saying throughout the history of this nation and before. So I do think that it's a similar play by the same people who lost the ability to use the kind of language and strategies that they had up until a few years ago. When I watched your message, I thought it was really interesting and helpful that you founded a definition of Christian nationalism that was actually embraced both by an advocate and by an opponent. So that's usually a good starting point.

Can you just kind of bring us into that definition that both the advocates and opponents sort of can settle on? Yeah. Paul Miller, who's a strong critic of Christian nationalism, wrote this book called, the religion of American greatness. What's wrong with Christian nationalism? And he gives a three part definition that he settles on.

And so he's an opponent of Christian nationalism, and he's opponent of what he defines as this. Let me just read it to you. He says, this is what it means. Christian nationalism asserts that there is something identifiable as a Christian nation, distinct from other nations, that American nationhood is and should remain defined by Christianity or Christian cultural norms, and that the American people and their government should actively work to defend, sustain, and cultivate America's Christian culture, heritage, and values. So first of all, there's such a thing as an American nation and that America was founded on the basis of Christian values or cultural norms, and thirdly, that Christians in America today should work for the maintenance of those values and norms and should call upon their government to do that as well.

Well, he's a critic. I mean, he's saying that's the definition, and we shouldn't do that as Christians. I mean, this guy used to be a, I think, a fellow in the ERLC, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Madison Convention. He's a well-respected evangelical, Southern Baptist. And I look at that definition, I say, that's a good definition.

I'm for them. I think those things, again, until not too many years ago, would have just been common sense for most conservative American evangelicals. So I think it's a good definition to work with and to begin to make sense of where our real differences lie. And in this instance, I have real differences with Paul Miller on this and his vision of political theology and how we ought to engage it as conservative evangelical Christians. And mine, we're just, we're on different pages.

And I'm okay with that. We can have a good conversation, at least agreeing on the definition. You know, one of the elements of the debate was the use of the law of God in government. And this is where I found our confession very, very helpful because it speaks very directly to it. I was really amazed a decade and a half ago, I preached through the book of Deuteronomy.

It was one of the most helpful things to me, just to see the applicability of the law of God. And you know, Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy more than any other book. Jesus loved the book of Deuteronomy. But what struck me as I was moving through the case laws is how many of our laws currently come right out of Deuteronomy. In other words, the discussion was should we have Christian laws?

Well, we already do have Christian laws. So what are you gonna do with that? But I'd like to just talk about the matter of biblical law in the government because our confession speaks very clearly. If I, when I have an intern group, I always make them memorize that chapter on the law because it's so clarifying it'll help them for the next 50 years, you know, to think it through. But let's talk about the law of God in government.

What are your thoughts? Yeah, well, you know, what you said in chapter 19 of the Confession, it's a great, great chapter to study the law. And what I tell guys is you have got to come to terms with what the New Testament and the Old Testament, but especially the New Testament, means by law. If you only have one definition, you think every time the word law shows up that is talking about the same thing, you're going to go off the rails. You won't get past Romans 2 before you'll be tied up in knots because there are different understandings of the law.

And historically, coming out of at least the Middle Ages with Aquinas and then certainly into the Reformers, Calvin and others, the threefold division of the law, which is in our confession, has been recognized as a helpful way to distinguish between law and law in the Bible. So what do we have? We've got the ceremonial law, the civil law, and the moral law. God gave laws to his old covenant people as a worshiping community. Those are ceremonial laws that governed how they worshiped him.

He gave laws to his old covenant people as a worshipping community. Those are ceremonial laws that governed how they worshipped him. He gave laws to his old covenant community as a body politic, and that is the civil pace laws that you referred to. But he also gave laws to his Old Covenant people as people made in his image. And so we're no longer a geopolitical entity in the kingdom of God.

We no longer worship under the Old Covenant because we're new covenant believers, but we're still people made in the image of God. So the moral law of God still obtains, and I love the way the confession puts it, that the civil laws are no longer obligatory, or maybe it says they are abolished, except to the degree that the general equity that is found within them. And so what does that refer into? It's the same thing you just mentioned. Where there's righteousness found in those Old Testament case laws, then we ought to take that and apply it in our modern age, in every age, in every place.

And one of the clear examples is in the Old Testament, you had the law, you had to have a parapet around your roof so that people on your roof wouldn't easily fall off. Well, you don't want to take that and just drop it into Cape Cora, Florida or Winston-Salem, North Carolina. You know, if you do that, that's going to be problematic because our roofs are mostly slanted and so not many people are walking on them. But is there general equity in that? Yeah, put a fence around your swimming pool, you know, or mitigate dangers that might exist in the normal course of life around your home.

And so understanding that, that we're still governed by the moral law of God, and that there's wisdom in trying to mine the equity, the general equity in those Old Testament civil laws and apply them. That's just, that's how America law has been developed and it's been good for us. Hey, I want to quote paragraph four in the confession. You were paraphrasing it very well, but I want to just read it because it's so clarifying. And paragraph four focuses on the most controversial question, and that's about the judicial laws.

Not a lot of controversy over the moral law, not a lot of controversy over the ceremonial law. It's a judicial law that really takes the heat and so the confession reads this, to them also he gave sundry judicial laws which expired together with the state of that people not obliging any now by virtue of that institution their general equity only being of moral use meaning the judicial laws are of moral use they contain principles and you know every every law of God represents the character of God every law of God is a law of love and it's and it's it's really it's disappointing when you find people who say well I don't like that law there you know you read Deuteronomy and some of them, they really reveal your own lack of justice and your own lack of love. If you don't like a law of God, there's something wrong with you, not with that law. But You know, this general equity principle is so critical. And I felt like that got lost in a lot of the Christian nationalism discussion.

When people were saying, oh, we're gonna have a theocracy. Well, neither the Westminster Confession or the Baptist Confession contend for that. Tom, let me say a phrase and just let you run with it. Myth of neutrality. Okay.

Yeah, that's right. We have had exposed to us in no uncertain terms just how deeply embedded in American psychology are the psyche of Americans and sadly too many American evangelicals this idea of enlightenment liberalism that we are a pluralistic society, that everything's neutral, that we don't want any kind of religious advantage being given, you know, and so we've even been misled about religious liberty. That religious liberty means that all religions need to be treated equal. That is not what even our Baptist forefathers meant when America was being passed. Not what the Danbury Baptist meant when they corresponded with Thomas Jefferson.

There is no neutrality. It is indeed a myth. You're going to worship someone. Somebody's going to determine. Some principle, some transcendental reality is going to determine what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is bad, how we should live our lives.

And of course, knowing God through faith in Jesus Christ, the only proper source of that is God himself. And I would go on to underscore, and I've told this to atheist friends of mine and to those who have been radically opposed to the idea that we ought to have a nation that honors the Lord whose laws reflect the righteousness of God. You better hope that biblical Christianity reigns supreme, because if it doesn't, then atheists, you're just going to survive only to the degree that you're strong enough to withstand what's coming. Try that in an Islamic Republic. If you're an atheist or if you're a homosexual and you go to an Islamic Republic and you try to live your life openly like that, you're not going to have any religious liberty.

Why? Because religious liberty is a fruit of biblical Christianity. And where you destroy biblical Christianity, you're not going to have religious liberty. So yes, we want a nation whose laws reflect the righteousness of the God, the only God who is. I mean, thou shalt not murder.

That's a Christian law. Paul cites it in Romans 13 elsewhere. Do we not want laws that reflect the righteousness of God? We all do, even those who hate God. If they're thinking right about it, we'll have to admit, yeah, we want laws that are built upon righteousness.

You know, I was struck by what you were saying. There are superior cultures, and superior cultures are built by superior laws. And it just made me think of where we live. You live in Florida, we're in North Carolina. The indigenous peoples, you know, that were ruling and reigning in our regions were eating one another, they were running around naked, they were putting grease on themselves to keep warm, they were raiding one another, and by the way I don't recall the last time Cape Coral was raided by a tribe.

In other words, that's because of the law of God. The Puritans came here and they established a basic fundamental Christian ethics in law, and that's why the American government still maintains biblical laws, and we've created a superior culture. There are particular ways that American culture is superior to other cultures in the world. Now we see the degradation of that. We're certainly not complaining, you know, saying that American culture is perfect or anything, not anything like that, But laws create culture.

And for people who say we don't really want God's law and government have not carefully thought through what the law of God actually is, and particularly confessional view of the law. That's what kind of frustrated me in this whole discussion about should we have Christian laws or not. I'm thinking paragraph four of the 1689 confession on the law that's where you should go. A point from your message that I found really helpful was the point that secularism is not free from any religious influence. It is itself a religion and it's simply a competing religion.

So secularism really gets a free pass as if it's this neutral party going going back to the Topic of neutrality. It is no neutral party. It is a competing religion Amen and we're seeing that more and more because the masks are coming on The walls are coming down When we were living in a time where there were still these notable threads in our culture that were tied to biblical Christianity, well okay secularism kind of maintained a place that wasn't as aggressive and as openly pagan as it is now. Well now that those threads have been pulled out and it's almost anything goes, you're seeing the real face of the so-called secularism. It is nothing but neo-paganism.

And just go to Drag Queen Story Hour or show up at one of these pride events in the month of June, and that's your secularism. And it grieves me whenever Christians, you know, David French said this, that yes, drag queen story hour is just a blessing of liberty. It's a blessing that he is, if he'd have said that a hundred years ago, you maybe could have understood it better, but there wouldn't have been a drag queen story hour then, because those people would have been arrested, rightly so and put in jail. There is no neutrality. The only question is who are you going to serve and what God is going to be honored in how the culture is guided and formed and shaped by its laws.

Amen. Okay, with just a couple minutes left here, Tom, you know, the firestorm has been raging. It's kind of evening out a little bit. Books have been written. Men have clarified their views.

What's your view from the bridge right now on these various streams of controversy over Christian nationalism? Yeah. Well, there are kooks on both sides. And so I think we just let the Cooke's duke it out among themselves. But I want to say to brothers like us, because we have confessional brothers that have really almost drawn swords on each other over this issue.

And it grieves me. And I would love to see, you know, let's get 15 or 20 of us in a room and put our cell phones away, lock the doors until we remember how much we have in common and what we agree on before we come out. Because those who have been most outspoken anti-Christian nationalists, they've been reacting to some extremes. And those who have been some of the most strongly vocal Christian nationalists, I think they also have been responding to extremes over there. I don't know any 1689 anti-Christian nationalists that doesn't want a godly government.

They all do. They're just nervous maybe about how it's been said. I don't know any 1689 Christian nationalists, self-described, that wants an Old Testament theocracy. That's not what they want. And I think if we could get in a room and quit talking past one another, we'd realize, okay, you know, we agree on about 90% of the issues here that we've been debating without really making much contact on each other's minds.

So I would love to see that happen. I think it could be a fruitful conversation. You know, I've felt like there's a lot more overlap and agreement on a lot more now than at the beginning of this firestorm because I think you know you do have men who really love their bibles and and and want to do the will of God so well Tom thank you so much thank you thank you for writing this book I really really appreciate it and hey maybe you can get those guys together. It'll be a great time. That'd be wonderful wouldn't it?

Yeah. Maybe well yeah and maybe it's just preparation for you know everybody to be in prison together. You know praising God for God's law. That's right. We'll have time.

Exactly. Thank you, Tom. Appreciate it. Thank you, brothers. And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast.

Hope you can join us next time. And don't forget to pick up Tom's book, The Perils and Promises of Christian Nationalism. Helpful, we encourage you to check out ChurchandFamilyLife.com