United Methodist Church bishops have publicly condemned Christian nationalism, claiming that it basically contradicts God’s love and prioritizes energy over compassion.
In a pastoral letter launched final week, Bishop Tracy S. Malone, the president of the UMC Council of Bishops, raised considerations concerning the rising polarization and division inside communities and nations.
“Nationalism is a political ideology that defies God’s love by pitting the interests of one group of people against others,” Malone wrote on behalf of the bishops, denouncing each Christian and secular nationalism.
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“Christian nationalism demands laws, culture, and public policies be based on a distorted interpretation of the Gospel that elevates power and control over love. These ideologies are in direct contradiction to our Christian faith because our ‘love of God is always linked with love of neighbor, a passion for justice and the renewal of life in the world.'”
The bishops mentioned pressures of world crises, comparable to local weather change, financial disparity and international migration, improve the attract of authoritarian leaders who propagate division.
This setting, Malone mentioned, not solely threatens civic engagement but in addition offers rise to political violence and authoritarian governance practices tinged with racism, misogyny and xenophobia.
The pastoral letter reasserted the denomination’s dedication to the Wesleyan custom, which acknowledges solely God’s final authority over creation. It referred to as for United Methodists to depend on Scripture, custom, cause and expertise to form a social conscience that pursues justice and nurtures international relationships.
Earlier this 12 months, delegates on the UMC Normal Convention voted to alter the denomination’s guidelines to permit for the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of individuals in same-sex marriages.
The modifications got here after greater than 7,500 largely conservative church buildings left the denomination because of the years-long debate over LGBT points.
In current instances, “Christian nationalism” has change into a typical time period in mainstream media and amongst progressive advocacy teams to explain sure conservative Christian teams and people.
Throughout a current multi-panel occasion moderated by The Christian Publish reporter Ian Giatti, retired Lt. Col. Allen West, former chairman of the Texas GOP, prompt that the Christian nationalism dialogue has emerged as a result of “the left has created a religion of their own.”
“So they have created these things, and if you don’t go with it, you don’t agree with it, then you’re an extremist,” he mentioned, making particular point out of Politico reporter Heidi Przybyla’s feedback throughout an MSNBC panel in February that slapped the “Christian nationalist” label on those that consider rights “don’t come from Congress, they don’t come from the Supreme Court, they come from God.”
Mike Berry, government director of the Heart for Litigation at America First Coverage Institute, has mentioned there is no such thing as a authorized definition of Christian nationalism.
“And even if there were a legal definition, I think the term has really taken on a life of its own. It’s been used, if you want to say it’s been weaponized, I think, by the Left, as a bit of a dog whistle,” mentioned Berry.
“Look, the United States, everybody agrees that the United States is not a theocracy. Anyone who studied the founding of our nation knows that we were really, it was a marvel of the world at the time, the way that our founders established our republic.”
In keeping with the progressive Baptist Joint Committee for Spiritual Liberty, Christian nationalism is “a cultural framework that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civic life.”
“Christian nationalism contends that America has been and should always be distinctively ‘Christian’ from top to bottom,” the BJC states. “But the ‘Christian’ in Christian nationalism is more about identity than religion. It carries with it assumptions about nativism, white supremacy, authoritarianism, patriarchy, and militarism.”
“Well bless their hearts.”
