Michelle Vought

A couple of weeks ago, I participated in a panel discussion at a conference with Dr. Andrew Walker, a professor at Southern Seminary. During our exchange, he made an argument against Christian nationalism that I have heard repeatedly from Baptists and, unfortunately, even some Presbyterians. The argument goes something like this: Whenever the civil government gets involved in matters of religion, the church inevitably becomes corrupted. You end up with nominal Christianity, apostate churches, and people who call themselves Christians simply because their nation is Christian. Therefore, the civil government must not officially acknowledge Christ or seek to uphold the Christian religion. For Baptists, this argument is often tied to their doctrine of regenerate church membership. Only regenerate people can properly be called Christians, and since a nation is made up of both believers and unbelievers, you cannot have a Christian nation. So I asked Dr. Walker a simple question. “Are churches Christian?” Of course, the answer was yes. Then I asked whether Baptist churches, even those committed to regenerate church membership and opposed to Christian nationalism, had ever fallen into nominalism, corruption, or outright apostasy. Again, the answer was yes. Well, now we have a problem. If your argument against a Christian nation is that it might produce nominalism and apostasy, but your own model has also produced nominalism and apostasy, then you haven’t actually made an argument against Christian nationalism. You’ve simply identified a problem that exists under both systems. In other words, refusing to have a Christian nation doesn’t protect you from the very thing you’re warning us about. Dr. Walker then asked me what system I proposed that would prevent these problems. My answer was simple: I don’t. And that’s precisely the point. I’m not proposing a utopian political system that will guarantee the perpetual purity of the church. No such system exists. As pastors, we have a duty to guard both the peace and purity of Christ’s church, but we are never promised that our churches will be free from hypocrisy, corruption, or apostasy on this side of glory. The question is not whether a Christian civil order can guarantee perfect results. The question is whether the civil magistrate has a duty to acknowledge Jesus Christ as King and govern according to His righteousness. And if he does, then the possibility of future corruption is no excuse for present disobedience. Consider King Josiah. Josiah instituted sweeping religious reforms. He tore down idols, destroyed false worship, and used his civil authority to restore the public worship of the true God. Yet those reforms did not permanently secure the faithfulness of Judah. Apostasy returned. Should Josiah have refused to act because a future generation might undo his work? Should Hezekiah have left the high places standing because some future king might rebuild them? Of course not! The possibility that a good thing may later be corrupted is not an argument against doing the good thing in the first place. And yet this is precisely the argument being made against Christian nationalism. We are told that if the government acknowledges Christ, supports true religion, and restrains public idolatry, the church might become corrupted. Well, look around! America has spent roughly two centuries moving away from its earlier forms of public Christian establishment toward an increasingly secular civil order. Has this protected the purity of the church? Hardly. We have liberal Protestant denominations that have abandoned the authority of Scripture. We have churches openly celebrating sins that Scripture condemns. We have Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, prosperity-gospel charlatans, and every conceivable form of religious heresy flourishing under a government that increasingly refuses to acknowledge the lordship of Christ.