THE IMAGINARY HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM
The Church faces no crisis more urgent than that posed by Christian nationalism. Born out of an infernal blend of political authoritarianism, fundamentalism, racism, and heteronormativity, Christian nationalism is on the rise in many countries around the world today. When they gain power, Christian nationalists restrict the rights of women and girls, pass profoundly racist policies, systematically favor Christian churches (or at least those that support their vision), and valorize corrupt leaders who hoard power and dismiss democratic norms.
Christian nationalists are fond of arguing that they have history on the side of their theology. The concentration of power in a solitary executive who favors Christian ideals and organizations is not just the historical norm, but is in fact ordained by God for the good of all. If you search the most dismal subreddits, you can find some particularly brazen versions of this argument. More public figures make slightly more measured arguments, but the message is the same: Christians were ordained by God to take the reins of political leadership.
Thankfully, Christian history does not so readily support this argument. In this essay, I want to focus on two often-cited examples of centralized theocratic power: the reign of Constantine, the first Roman emperor to be a Christian, and the political theology of Thomas Aquinas.
Few figures loom larger in the Christian imagination than Constantine. His seemingly miraculous conversation to Christianity and control of the entire Roman Empire have led many to see him as the beginning of the marriage religious institutions with state power. Many traditions venerate Constantine as a saint, and while you can find religious authors today that criticize his brand of governance,[1] the Christians of his time were ecstatic. The bishop and scholar Eusebius of Caesarea wrote a powerful endorsement of Constantine’s reign, comparing the rule of one emperor to the rule of the one God over the universe.
Christian nationalists point to Constantine as an example of how God can work through a ruler to bring about good ends. How many of us would never have found Christianity had Constantine not legalized it? Would our faith in the Trinity be the same if Constantine had not called the Council of Nicaea?
Unfortunately for Christian nationalists, these hypothetical questions crash when confronting the jagged rocks of historical reality. First of all, Christianity was already part of the fabric of the Roman Empire before Constantine came along, representing about 10% of the population by 300 AD. This represented explosive growth since 200 AD, and it is not difficult to imagine that Christianity would have continued to flourish even without imperial endorsement. Furthermore, as scholars have noted and as I argue in my upcoming book Christ and the Council, Constantine’s involvement in the development of Trinitarian doctrine was minimal. He convened and opened the Council of Nicaea, but there is no mention of his participation in any of its debates. The only account to mention his presence comes from his fanboy Eusebius of Caesarea, who is not a trustworthy source on this matter.
And even Eusebius had his limits in praising Constantine. His rejoicing in Constantine’s reign needs to be seen in its proper context. Before Constantine’s reign, the Roman Empire was governed by four emperors (two in the East and two in the West). The emperors before Constantine had enacted a massive persecution of Christians across the Empire. Christians were mostly excited to have a ruler who would not torture and murder them; their joy in having power centralized in one man was an afterthought. Moreover, Eusebius instructed Constantine and his sons that even the emperor had a ruler: God. Unlike Roman emperors, who were thought to be gods on earth, the Christian emperor was a man like any other and in need of Christ’s redemption. Constantine appears to have understood this. Unlike previous emperors, Constantine would spend the night before a battle praying and weeping over his sins, not partying with his officers. Christian emperors were expected to show humility before God and to model virtue to their subjects. Pagan emperors had no such obligation. The Empire changed the church; but the church also changed the Empire. The church limited the emperor’s power by reminding him of his mortality, humanity, and obligations to his subjects. That did not, of course, turn the Roman Empire into a twenty-first century liberal democracy. It was seventeen centuries too early for that. But it is odd to assert that Constantine is a model for seizing power when his Christianization of the empire limited his power in important respects.
Constantine was not a theologian by any stretch of the imagination. He was a practical man attempting to hold an empire together. Medieval friars tended to have considerably more free time for reflection, and few reflected more profoundly than Thomas Aquinas. Since Thomas Aquinas has the official endorsement of the Roman Catholic Church, his thought remains profoundly influential even today.
Aquinas has much to say about the nature of government. Being the deeply organized nerd that he was,[2] Aquinas identified six kinds of government. Being the deeply organized nerd that I am, I have put them into a nifty little table for your reading pleasure:
Aquinas states that the best form of government is a monarchy, and draws an analogy to the human body. Just as God created the body in such a way that the head controls the rest of the body, so societies are best when they are controlled by one ruler who can take decisive action. Indeed, we see monarchies of all kinds in nature. Bees are governed by a single queen, and God governs the entire universe. Unless we are prepared to say that God created nature in an inferior state, then monarchy has to be the best form of government.
At this point, Christian nationalists might cheer Aquinas’s proposal. He seems to endorse their desires to centralize power in a single figure who will impose theocratic laws on the populace. Unfortunately for them, Aquinas possesses a wider grasp of justice and a firmer grasp of reality than they do, and so he makes some caveats.
The first caveat is that power is used rightly when it is used for the benefit of the whole society. Christians cannot simply take power to benefit themselves. Nor should Christians use power to coerce others into the faith. Aquinas explicitly rejects the possibility of forcing atheists and members of other religions to become Christian. Belief cannot be forced; even if a government can compel outward compliance it has no power to create genuine belief.[4] Indeed, the government should allow other religions to practice their beliefs – as God himself does.[5]
The second caveat is that humans are sinful creatures. A society ruled by a perfectly wise monarch would indeed be the best form of government. Such a society already exists. It is called heaven, and we on earth must strive for the second best society. Aquinas therefore makes several practical suggestions for government that combine elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and republic. He notes that in the Old Testament, Moses did not govern as a sole monarch. Instead, a council of elders were elected from the people that assisted in juridical functions and administration. Moreover, government cannot make people good or virtuous; only God can do that. A society’s laws need to protect its members from the worst effects of sin, but cannot prohibit all sin. For example, murder is a sin, and a government using its power rightly will outlaw murder. After all, it is rather difficult for someone to contribute to society and become more virtuous if they have been murdered. There are many sins, however, that cannot be punished in that way. For example, if I lose my temper and snap at a friend, I have sinned against them. However, a law banning people from making angry remarks would be counterproductive. It would be impossible to enforce, universally violated, and would unfairly intrude upon ordinary human relations. Furthermore, my friend and I can use the sin as an occasion to grow in goodness through forgiveness and reconciliation. If I am prosecuted for my temper tantrum, that opportunity is likely to be lost.
Neither Aquinas nor Constantine supported democratic governments. They were men of their times, and in their times monarchy reigned supreme. That does not mean that monarchy is ordained by God, however. It simply means that many historical contexts did not allow democratic forms of government to flourish. It is far more historically significant that both Constantine and Aquinas recognized limits on the sovereign’s power in contexts that assumed his absolute supremacy. They understood that Christ calls Christians to lead through humility and service, not supreme power. The Christian nationalist’s desire for power is not God-given. It is a pathetic and reprehensible yearning for an imaginary past in which the world was rightly ordered, good conquered evil, and the “right people” were in charge.
The great irony is that the future the Christian nationalist hopes for already exists. It is called the Kingdom of God. But it can only be accessed by those who are willing to give up the will to control the Kingdom’s governance. Only when all people are free can all participate in the freedom that Christ truly came to bring. In the face of those who would drag us backward, it is good to remember the truth that the Spirit has been whispering for centuries. The greatest is the one who serves, the first shall be last, and that the head of our Body is Christ himself. Woe to the one who would take the Lord’s place.
[1] See, for example, here, here, and here.
[2] In fairness, he was following the ancient philosopher Aristotle, who was also a deeply organized nerd.
[3] Aquinas and Aristotle use the term “democracy” instead of “mob rule,” but given that democracy has different connotations in modern Western societies, I have opted for a less literal translation here.
[4] Aquinas, ST II-II q.10 a.8. Interestingly, Aquinas does make an allowance for forcing “heretics and apostates” back into the fold of the church, but this has less to do with the nature of governance than with a desire to protect the church from heretical imitations.
[5] Aquinas, ST II-II q.10 a.11.
