Your Local Christian Nationalist Responds to John Piper
Remember: Local Christian Nationalist posts can be found in audio form on The Servants and Heralds Podcast.
Dear Fellow Believer,
We Lose Down Here! My response to John Piper’s recent essay called, “My Kingdom Is Not of This World” follows:
Even though he doesn’t explicitly call out Christian Nationalists, it’s clear that John Piper is seeking to lay to rest any notion that Christians can and should build a Christian Nation. Before I get into the crux of my qualms with this essay, I need to proactively address the tone-police who will inevitably tell me I need to watch my tone, I need to respect my elders, blah blah and yada yada. I’m responding to Piper’s published work here. I am not attacking his character, his faith, his witness, or anything that can be remotely construed as slander. I appreciate Piper’s other work as a fellow Calvinist. I also appreciate his efforts to make Puritan works great again. It’s Piper’s affinity for Puritans that makes his arguments in this essay so baffling. But as John MacArthur likes to say, “We Lose Down Here!”, something Piper’s Puritan heroes would not understand.
Let’s start at the beginning:
“The thesis of this essay is that Jesus Christ intends to accomplish his saving purposes in the world without reliance on the powers of civil government to teach, defend, or spread the Christian religion as such.”
Who is saying otherwise? Who is saying that Jesus, the Church, the gospel, all depend, or rely upon the civil government to spread the gospel? I want names! If your essay’s thesis relies on correcting a mistaken notion that needs correcting, then who is promoting the mistaken notion?
We’re never told unfortunately. We get to stand idly by as Dr. Piper beats this straw man he’s constructed to death.
“Followers of Christ should not use the sword of civil government to enact, enforce, or spread any idea or behavior as explicitly Christian — as part of the Christian religion as such.”
What in the world can this possibly mean? If I’m a Christian sheriff, mayor, city council member, do I have to leave my faith at home when I engage in my public duties? What moral standards can I adopt in these vocations? Do I have to use pagan/secular standards in the public sphere, is that what Jesus commands?
“It is critical to understand what I mean by the phrases “explicitly Christian” and “the Christian religion as such.” The state may indeed teach, defend, and spread ideas and behaviors that Christians support”
Oh good, I was getting worried! Carry on doctor!
“But that is not the same as the state’s taking on the role of advocacy for the Christian faith as such. It’s the latter, not the former, that the New Testament opposes.”
How many times?
How many times must Christian Nationalists insist that we don’t want forced conversions?
We don’t want our county sheriff’s proselytizing their unbelieving constituents.
We don’t want people going to jail because they didn’t accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and savior.
We want a nation whose laws adhere to the laws of the Almighty. One of the best ways we can love our neighbor is by having a just legal system, and God’s law shows us how to build such a system.
Dr. Piper then goes to, you guessed it, “My Kingdom is not of this world”. He starts from this premise to state that Jesus’ kingdom is explicitly and exclusively spiritual. Theologians more studied and qualified than myself have addressed this scripture, but I think it’s fair to say that we don’t have to accept the Anabaptist and Pietistic interpretation that says Christ is not King right now. In fact Christ says exactly the opposite in the Great Commission, something Dr. Piper barely addresses. Matthew 28 is a key scripture for Christian Nationalists! Yet somehow Dr. Piper only brings it up to say, “The church is made up of all nations not just one”. Which… is a point, I guess?
Let’s read the Great Commission and you can tell me if Jesus was talking in a strictly spiritual manner.
Matthew 28:18-20
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
A couple of observations:
- All authority in heaven AND ON EARTH!
- This can’t be exclusively spiritual if both the spiritual and the natural realm are under Christ’s domain
- Go therefore and make disciples of ALL NATIONS!
- Notice Jesus did not say, go into all the world, find and make disciples. He says make disciples of all nations, every nation. Seems a weird thing to say if, as Piper insists, Jesus forbids his disciples to bring his gospel into the civil sphere.
- Teaching them to observe ALL THAT I HAVE COMMANDED YOU!
- Everyone is supposed to obey Jesus. Everybody, every person from every nation must be taught to obey everything that Jesus commands us to obey. Doesn’t matter if they’re Christians or heathens.
There are many reasons why I’m a Christian Nationalist, but the Great Commission is the biggest reason. I don’t feel like God’s word gives me a choice. I have to obey and disciple the nations.
Many Christians, both Christian Nationalist and otherwise, have acknowledged America’s backslidden state. We’ve fallen away from our Christian heritage. But brothers and sisters, how do you think we got here? I’d argue it’s Anabaptist, Pietistic nonsense like what Piper is promoting that has caused the Western Church to lose her saltiness, to hide her light under a bush. We need to stop pretending that Jesus wants us to keep our Bibles out of Washington and start unashamedly preaching the full gospel message, salvation by grace through faith with a full abandonment of our pagan ways and a deep love of God and his law (Psalm 119:97).
Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. But before America repents, perhaps her church should repent first.
Sincerely,
Your Local Christian Nationalist
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