Late January Monthly Post - Nationalism and/vs Christianity

 NATIONALISM is dominant. Yes, we do not hear the word a lot, but it is the driving force in many people's actions, it is a force that controls matters from our everyday deeds and dialog to matters of politics and economy. What is nationalism? 

The first major point I want to introduce you today is the nature of nationalism. There are two kinds of definitions for everything. I have made up this terminology, and these two are definitive meanings/values and typical meanings/values. What do I mean by this? Let's make an example, lets say the word "apple". The definitive meaning of an apple is "the round fruit of the tree of the rose family, which typically has a thin red or green skin". However, the typical meanings of an apple can be "a fruit", etc. The difference between these two kinds of definitions is that definitive definitions precisely define what something is, while typical meanings can define it, but can also define many other things. Something has more than one typical meaning, but only oen definitive meaning. I have used all of this explanation to clear up what I am about to say. In this case, nationalism's definitive meaning all clumped into one word is "zeal". Why I had to explain that this is its definitive meaning rather than a typical meaning is so that it will be distinguished, because it is many other things, but it itself in one word is "zeal". Why?

Zeal's definitive meaning is a great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or objective. Zeal can be many different things, which includes nationalism. Why is nationalism a kind of zeal? Nationalism is an energy or enthusiasm, it is a driving force after all, and this driving force will try to complete a goal. But zeal as a word is too insufficient to completely explain what nationalism is. There are many details, properties, and features of nationalism not found in other zeals. Now, we will explore those details and compare each of them to the Bible.

First, nationalism is a zeal attached to a certain unit. Although most if not every zeal is like this, I need to emphasize about this. Every person who is sinful has a "nationalistic energy" of sorts, and this energy can be attached to a unit of loyalty. This is kind of a deep sentence. Basically, everyone can put his positive or negative loyalty onto something, dubbed as a "unit" by George Orwell. For example, a Zionist's unit of loyalty is his people, the Jews. But units go beyond nations and political entities. Unjts of nationalism include social classes, groups, religions, etc. So, nationalism is  not only used to describe a zeal and loyalty towards a nation, but to many other things. Why is this so? Because there are many instances of a similar problem to political nationalism in many other loyalties to other things. If nationalism was just a zeal attached to a certain unit, it would be alright. However, it is this attachment to this certain unit that is problematic. Now, this is tthe first property of nationalism. 

Second, everyone has a nationalistic energy that can be poured onto a unit od nationalism to produce nationalistic action. Now, this is complicated. Let's break this sentence down piece by piece. All humanity has an nationalistic energy. What does this statement mean? A nationalistic energy is the somethinf that can be placed with a unit of nationalism. Everyone has one and it is  product of sin. This nationalistic energy is rather complex. Everyone has the capacity to have a nationalist zeal for something which is transferrable, meaning that someone can change where one places his/her nationalist zeal. Now, when someone becomes nationalistically loyal to a unit of nationalism which we have explained earlier, that person will actively work for the good of this unit of loyalty, even when it could cause immorality and harm. And a nationalist's work is a nationalist action. This course of event is both a product of sin and a sin proper, since there is a sinful aspect tied to nationalism, ans nationalism results in sin. An example of this is the September 11 attacks. Certain Muslims put their nationalist energy onto their extremism and their religion, so it resulted into a nationalist action, which ignored morality and even their own lives. This is another u ugly effect of sin.

Third, nationalism is blind to the truth. If I had to descrine what nationalism is in tow words, it would be a blind zeal. So, this third property of nationalism is very important. This is the sentence explained within mroe complicated terms: A nationalist longs for the supremacy (or destruction) of his/her unit of nationalism, and he/she will twist the truth to satisfy his/her nationalist energy. Also, a nationalist assumes swathes of people to a single trait just because of their status correspondent to their unit of nationalism. Basically, a nationalist wants to advance the unit of nationalism and if the facts are against a nationalist, he/she is bothered and will try to twist the teuth to what is good (or bad) for the unit of nationalism. Of course, because if nationalism will esceed morality, for the nationalist it will too exceed the truth. King Jehoiakim of Judah burned the scroll given by Jeremiah through Baruch, and he was rejecting the truth. This, too, is wrong and sinful, we must accept the truth, the Bible. Thus, nationalism and "Sola Scriptura" are two conflicting ideas.

Fourth,  nationalism can be categorized into positive and negative nationalism. Previously, in the third point I often said that a nationalist longs for either what is good or what is bad for the unit of nationalism. This is because there are two types of nationalism. Positive nationalism is when the nationalist puts a nationalist energy and wants that unit of nationalism to become better or supreme. Meanwhile, negative nationalism is when the nationalist hates a unit of nationalism in a way where that person will do nationalist actions that can exceed morality and truth to try and do something against the unit of nationalism. Units of nationalism can be both something a nationalist likes (positive nationalism) and something a nationalist dislikes (negative nationalism). We will delve deeper into each. Positive nationalism include zionism, because a zionist wants both Israel's presence in the Promised Land and sometimes the general supremacy overall. The opposite of zionism, antisemitism, which is a negative nationalism, hates the Jews and often results in nationalist products such as the Holocaust genocide. Both are wrong, though I think positive nationalism, though it can also result in sinful nationalist actions, is slightly "better".

Fifth, nationalism and patriotism are different things. Patriotism is devotion to a unit of patriotism.  Patriotism is defensive, while nationalism is offensive. What does this mean? Basically, patriotism believes that ifs unit is the best but often doesn't interfere with other entities. Patriotism is a special concern or devotion towards a unit of patriotism which is often a positive one rather than against somethong. However, I still disagree since it involves thinking that their unit of patriotism is special, but since everyone has a different unit, it results in conflicting devotions and beliefs, all of which cannot harmoniously live. Since everyone has some innate units of nationalism (country, social class, family, ethnicity etc), it would be messy if everyone thinks they are special judt because they have this innate unit of nationalism everyone has. I still disagree with the patriotic doctrine, though the nationalist doctrine is worse.

Sixth, everyone is a nationalist in some sense, but Christianity's proper doctrine and the Scriptures are not at all nationalist. Everyone who is sinful and not glorified yet is nationalist, how religious they are. Nationalism is sin-long, it statted when sin began and will end when sin ends. This includes Christians, because as long as we are imperfect and not yet fully sanctified and then glorified, we still have a tint of nationalism. However, the Bible's true, ideal doctrine is not at all nationalist. Why? Nationalism is blind, but the Bible is true, nationalism rejects the truth and morality, the Bible is the truth and the judge between what is good and what is not. 

Seventh, nationalism started when Eve first sinned. I had previously said that nationalism is sin-long, but this point is more devoted to this truth. Eve wanted power and knowledge, though it was false, over God, and she was tempted that this was right, although she was warned it wasn't. Let's align Eve's deeds to the properties of nationalism hitherto. The first property of nationalism matches becauwe Eve wanted supremacy, merit, and knowledge like God, and the unit of nationalism is herself. She was tempted and when she sinned, her nationalistic energy was poured onto the unit of nationalism, resulting in the first sin. She was blind to the truth said by God in the previous chapter, and thus the third property applies, her nationalism was predominantly positive, because she wanted power for herself (but also negative against God, of course) and for the fifth property she was being nationalist since she also bertrayed God's command and wanted to be like God. 

Eighth, the effect and dominance of nationalism grows over time. One of the false perceptions of nationalism was that it started in the late 1700s. According to most, nationalism began in the French Revolution. Yes, the French Revolution was a huge manifestation and result of nationalism, the proletariat seeking power and supremacy and taking violent means into overthrowing the nobillity, but it did not begin with the French Revolution. It only grew over time, since sin grows over time, and nationalism grows with it. 

Ninth, people deny their nationalism when it is publicly despised. During the Holocaust, antisemitists in less affected places like Britain hid their nationalist views to avoid controversy and backlash. This shows that nationalists are fully aware of rhe truth and situation but persist nevertheless. They know it is despised, but they only hide it. They are blind, but also aware in the same way. They, practically, are ignorantly blind.

Tenth, nationalists are obsessed with or against their unit of nationalism. Always, a nationalist will try to think about the advantages and strengths of their unit of nationalism if they are a positive and nationalism and try to come up with praise, they are obsessed with finding good things from their unit. If they are a negative nationalist, they will find weaknesses and disadvantages of their respective unit of nationalism. They will find the most obscure and unimportant of advantages or disadvantages  just to secure that their unit of nationalism is the best or the worst. This is sinful, we make our own scales and measurements how unimportant they are, when the important scale is our faith. This is the length nationalists will take to prove the superiority or inferiority of their unit of nationalism. 

Eleventh, nationalism and jingoism are tied. Nationalists want the superiority or inferiority of something, often resulting in thoughts that something is inferior and sometimes sinful results. Jingoism is when these sinful results lead in serious violence and it is connected with nationalism. These two ideas are very similar because both jingoism is a horrid result of nationalism, but also nationalism is, at doctrine and core, a very mild form of jingoism, and thus they are weakly synonymous. Why? Nationalism results in slight forms of jingoism, including malicious thoughts, and thus these two are connected, and nationalism is connected with terrible sins and is atrocious.

Twelfth, nationalism is completely separated from true love. This is quite obvious, since nationalism is a product of the sin and wickedness of man. It does not love God, it is a sin and product of it, and it is against another and twists and bends the truth. It does not love another, because it has malicious thoughts and sometimes actions towards others. Does a nationalist love the unit of nationalism? No, a nationalist does not even love his own unit of nationalism. Read 1 Corinthians 13, a very famous and beautiful, a delightful and eye opening chapter of the Bible written by the apostle Paul to the Corinthian church devoid of God’s instruction with classes. These are the properties of love referenced by Paul - love is patient and kind, it does not boast, it is not proud,it is not self seeking, it does dishonor others and does not delight in evil, etc. This verse rebukes the nationalist “love” for its own unit of nationalism. Not even a nationalist loves his or her own unit, that is how unloving the nationalist doctrine is! 

Thirteenth, nationalism and God’s judgement do not agree. How a nationalist judges humanity and how God judges humanity are different processes with different steps with different considerations. This is the contrast between He who is holy to sinners like us. Previously, we have already said that a nationalist will twist and bend the truth so that his unit of nationalism’s superiority or inferiority is secured, and that a nationalist assumes that all persons of a certain class or group if he is against or for it is either bad or good, regardless of his or her personal details. God has chosen certain  people from all social classes and ethnicities, and nations. This differs from nationalism’s false doctrine.

Fourteenth, nationalism ends with God’s Judgement. When God’s judgement occurs and sin is fully defeated and no longer has a foothold on humanity at all, so will nationalism, because that is unbiblical and it is sinful, it clearly violates God’s properties of love, which is important, and it will end there.

Fifteenth, nothing good springs out of nationalism. Goodness belongs to God, and nationalism is ungodly. Someone has said, nationalism can ne positive if we criticize our unit of nationalism, in this case a country, for the better. While refuting and rebuking is good, if we do not criticize and try to improve other units, we are not being fair, since we should not just criticize one person, that would be hypocritical, though it is true we should not correct certain people who are wicked.

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There are many other truths about nationalism. Now, let’s merge and infuse all these properties into one, all encompassing, and definitive meaning about what nationalism truly means. This is what I think nationalism truly is: 

Nationalism is a sinful, blind, and falselt judgemental zeal that does not have true love to God, others, or its own unit of which it is attached to and will twist the truth to support for,  which persists even under the truth which is against it, and is obsessed to the unit of nationalism and which grows over time though it is sin-long. It will end when sin ends, and starts when sin starts, and it is not godly, so nothing good comes from it. 

The second part of the first session is a distinguishment with Marxism. Why? Marx said history is the repetition of class struggles, basically people’s differing unit of nationalism clashing. He wanted equality, especially economic equality, and to basically some of these classes. This might appear as anti nationalist, but Christian anti nationalism and Marxist beliefs are different. While Christians are against nationalism because of its blindness, false judgement, sinfulness, unlovingness, and problems, socialists view classes and their struggles just for economic gain or dry, material gains that are unbeneficial. 

Not only is our intention in trying to end these struggles is different, but how we are trying to do something is different. Marxists are not completely egalitarian, but they are more egalitarian, and rheir metric is economy and worldly things, but Christianity’s metric of people is faith, which saves. This concludes the first session.

 

First, I want to distinguish this negative light on nationalism with disobedience to the government or any group. Yes, it is true that the Bible tells us to obey the government because God has put them in place, but after all God is our ultimate authority, and we cannot obey the government if it tells us to do whay is wrong or unbiblical. Nationalism is different from what the Bible suggests to do. 

Now, let's begin the second main phase, the ethical phase, which is about our course of action. First, we must understand that, as humans with deficits, sins, and iniquities, how there is no feasible way for a human to alone get rid of all his nationalism. This is the first thing we must understand: Alone, like every sin, nationalism cannot be defeated. How hard we try, thers will be times our nationalistic energy shows up. Since we are only perfect when we are glorified, on this earth, there will always be htimes where we are nationalist. 

So, then should we try? Is there any use in doing so? We will answer this question. First, we need to know - can people be "less" nationalist? My answer is yes, we can, through God's grace and sanctification, though there will never be perfection from nationalism until glorification takes place. The Holy Spirit will guide us to, over time,  exercise nationalism less and less. After all, on 1 Corinthians 13 it states that when the perfect comes, temporary things and imperfect things are gone. However, what steps should we take ourselves? Should we? This is quite an interesting part. I think we should try to reduce nationalist tendecies ourselves, though it is the grace of God that acts. While we could say that the answer to nationalism is godly, true love, this does not very clearly answer our question on what we should do. 

So how do we practice this true love? First, we obviously must read Scripture so we can gain more understanding on God and true love. Another imporant thing is to still remember God's grace that makes us improve and rely on it. We must apply these Scriptures, too. A good step is remembering what reallly differentiates and distinguishes humans that is the most important: faith. By remembering the importance of faith, we can set aside all other things, which helps us reduce nationalistic tendecies. Next, we must prioritize God and nothing else, no unit of nationalism can exceed Him. These two previous things are very important -  in trying to improve in anything, we must be christocentric/theocentric, not anthropocentric.

It is a grace for someone to even want to reduce their nationalist tendencies from the start, and a grace for that person to begin trying and actinf to reduce it, and it is a grace if he succeeds. Theocentrism is key in trying to improve. Another thing to do is not to conform with the world's pattern, just as Paul said im Romans 12:2, and remember God's will, just as the verse commands. Basically, here is the main ethical summary: to reduce nationalism, rely on God's grace and try to end worldly and former says and remember God's will and word. 

That is the end of the ethical phase. Now, there will be a soteriological phase, where we examine how someone's nationalism corresponds with their salvation. Since everyone has to some extent a "nationalist" tendency, to some form of unit of nationalism, some nationalists will be saved. What I mean by this is is that, just like how sinners are saved theough God's grace and his faith, nationalism itself )

does not judge, since everyone to an extent is, but the difference between nationalists who are and are not saved is this: their faith. Just like how we had previously said that we must focus onto faith, this is also the deciding difference. This is what differentiates and distinguishes all nationalists, which is all sinners, and some sinners are chosen and saved, but these chosen had faith. 

Now we have seen that nationalism is not loving (because of a lack of the tendencies of love shown in 1 Corinthians 13, neither loving God, other humanity, or their own unit of loyalty, not faithful, because nationalism is about putting a lot of trust and loyalty into a worldly unit and placing it over God and fsith as the most importsnt aspect a person, replacing it with whatever standard benefits their unit of nationalism/loyalty. Because there is still some time, we will cover some other miscellaneous important aspects and properties of nationalism.

Another property and important feature of nationalism is that a nationalist energy can make a nationalistic action and also greatly shape and control the behavior of someone. In the second property of nationalism, we said nationalistic energy can produce action, but what is worth emphasizing is the strength of a nationalistic zeal, which blinds people of the truth and Scripture, which changes our behavior. The ninth property says that nationalists hide their nationalism when it is unpopular. When nationalists are confronted about their unit of loyalty and the truth, especially when that matter is notorious, one tends to switch behavior to conceal the truth to others. 

This other property, the seventeenth property, is somewhat strange. Over the course of this text, we emphasized the loyalty and obsession of a nationalist to his or her's unit of nationalism, but now we take a weird turn - there is an unstable element of nationalism. How is this possible? There are instances in history where someone changes gears and becomes favoring to something else. I think this is either because of a popular change in most people, for example when that thing suddenly becomes popularly hated, sometimes they are also swayed, but this explanation is dubious given a nationalist is indifferent to reality. Instead, it could just be simply forgetting and leaving one unit to another, but remaining the same otherwise, as suggested by Orwell, though I think the answer is just that person leaving it due to some personal reason, probably  one of opinion or stance. This means that nationalists are unstable and dubious, which contrasts with faith.

The eighteenth property is that nationalism is wrongly viewed by the general public. Nowadays, nationalism is viewed wrongly by most anti-nationalists and pro-nationalists. Anti nationalists view nationalism as bad, but often times have a godless perception, and pro nationalists, which is more dominant, of course have an overpositive view of it. Like many other sins, nationalism is misunderstood. 

Let's make a final comparison between nationalism and faith. Nationalism is unloving and more self inclined, while faith is loving and God inclined. Nationalism is a false zeal, while faith is a good, or godly, zeal. Faith is against sin, while nationalism produces it.