Salt and Light Op-Ed: Christian Civic Engagement

Originally published by AFPI Biblical Foundations.

“Christian Nationalism” is getting lots of attention these days. Some use the term to create a menacing strawman to scare off political opponents. Others use the term uncritically to describe a political theology they do not understand (and do not care to clarify). Still others weaponize the term to silence the Church’s voice in the public square. One reason the term is troublesome is its highly subjective definition.

In the 2020 book titled Taking America Back for God, the authors characterize Christian civic engagement as “nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity, along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism. It is as ethnic and political as it is religious.”^[1] Left-wing political pundits and media jumped on this term and began running with it — no wonder people are so alarmed!

But is this term accurate? It seems the definition wrongly conflates categories and attaches the label “Christian” to explicitly non-Christian ideologies. Christian theology is the birthplace of ideas such as human dignity, religious liberty, and concern for the nations.

To read the full article, click here.