Megalomaniac Jesus Props Up Christian Nationalism

It became a trendy thing in 2022 for people to dismiss Christian Nationalism as just a minor problem, something on the fringes of American culture. Progressive Christians called Christian Nationalists “fake Christians” and said that Christian Nationalism is just “imposter Christianity.” Some even called Christian Nationalism a “heresy”, using a word that reflects a rather medieval mindset.

The motivation behind these dismissals was to separate Christian Nationalism from what some people like to call “mainline Christianity”. By depicting Christian Nationalism as just a weird little aberration, they thought, Christian normatively could be preserved. Christianity in general, they argued, is sweet and lovely and harmless, nothing to worry about, so everyone could return to the pews and resume paying tithes to the churches, please.

There was just one problem with this line of thinking about Christian Nationalism: It isn’t supported by reality. Christian Nationalism is not a thin fringe on the extremes of American Christianity. It is the majority of Christian identity in the United States. A recent survey found that 79 percent of American Christians support the fundamental beliefs of Christian Nationalism. The majority of American Christians voted for Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Christian Nationalism isn’t an outsider to American Christianity. Christian Nationalism is at the core of American Christianity. It’s an ideology taught by Christian churches of most denominations, encouraged by preachers who seek to expand their political power.

Christian Nationalism is also founded on some aspects of the character of Jesus as revealed in the Christian bible. The whitewashed version of Jesus that’s taught to kids in Sunday schools seems like the perfect nice guy, but the Jesus of the full New Testament is erratic, sometimes seeming to be kind hearted, but at other times threatening and even violent. Jesus didn’t hesitate to beat people in the Temple with a whip when they refused to follow his own religious beliefs. Jesus threatened torture and death to others who refused to worship him as a god king.

“Jesus would never support Christian Nationalism,” people like to say, but if they actually read their Christian bibles, they’d see that maybe Jesus would be right on board with the violent zealots of our own day. In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 19, for example Jesus tells the parable of a king who rightfully demands that all people who refuse to obey him should be brought before him so he can watch them be executed… and then in the very next lines, Jesus declares himself to be a king. Get the picture?

"Those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them,” Jesus said, “bring them here and kill them in front of me!”

Christian Nationalism didn’t pop into existence from nowhere. The violent, judgmental, hateful aspects of Christianity have been there from the very start of the religion. Whether Jesus was an actual person or was just a character written in to justify the beliefs of early Christian leaders, we see in the Christian bible that bloody hate has been a part of the character of Jesus from the very start.

Yes, Jesus would support Christian Nationalism, because Jesus was a nasty, controlling megalomaniac.