As of this writing (late 2022, with the whole world having just experienced, or still experiencing, medical fascism and State tyranny at the largest and most comprehensive scale), Christian nationalism happens to be the latest iteration of the modern conservative movement trying to craft an identity for itself. In the early years of this century, it tried Constitutionalism and then, during the Trump era, there was a brief surge of alt-right monarchism. Christian nationalism seeks to be unapologetically nationalistic and seeks to present itself as a bastion of "Christian" "culture", without having coherent definitions for either of those terms (and, in some instances, is explicitly kinist, if not white nationalist). In other words, those who subscribe to the movement have finally given up pretending to be Republican or monarchist, and have correctly accepted that the modern world and its assumptions are fundamentally liberal democratic -- therefore, the only hope, in their eyes, is to embrace this completely, with the goal of trying and fashioning it into their own ill-defined hodge-podge of images and ideas.
An important segment of this modern re-emergent movement consists of, or is strongly influenced by, theonomy. An important tenet of that is the idea that Christians must use the sword of the State in order to punish evil-doers and sinners.
In this article, I seek to delve deep into the details of this mindset and I will do so by asking : "are modern Christian nationalists more akin to the Pharisees or the Zealots of the Biblical era"?
In contrast to Christian nationalism, my own worldview is that Christians necessarily ought to be anarchists, as detailed here, here, and here.
Who were the Zealots?
The Zealots were a group of first-century Jews, whose identity is not dealt with in detail in the Gospel narratives. Certainly, one of the chief followers of Christ was a Zealot, the disciple and Apostle Simon (not Peter). The wiki introduction to the Zealots is instructive : "The Zealots were a political movement in 1st-century Second Temple Judaism which sought to incite the people of Judea Province to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel it from the Holy Land by force of arms, most notably during the First Jewish–Roman War. Zealotry was the term used by Josephus for a "fourth sect" or "fourth Jewish philosophy" during this period". It continues : "Josephus' Jewish Antiquities states that there were three main Jewish sects at this time, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. The Zealots were a "fourth sect", founded by Judas of Galilee (also called Judas of Gamala) in the year 6 CE against the Census of Quirinius, shortly after the Roman Empire declared what had most recently been the tetrarchy of Herod Archelaus to be a Roman province. According to Josephus, they "agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord."".
The Roman Empire of that time behaved figuratively as dragons or beasts running roughshod in the 1st century Palestinian Jewish culture, engaged in civilization and culture destroying mass murder and terrorist criminality, not unlike the archons (all modern States and super-States like the UN, the WEF, as well as shadow States like the CDC, the FDA, etc.) that rule the modern world today.
So, we see that the Zealots had some anarchist assumptions (for e.g. modern Christian anarchists frequently cite the idea of 'No King but Christ' as a summary of their own position) -- but they pursued revolutionary means which, depending on the circumstances, are not necessarily anarchistic, and are frequently anti-anarchistic. Regardless, they had a clear sense of the enemy and they had a clear sense of justice, and they sought to slay the gargantuan beasts that terrorized their lands, and, virtuously, did not fear their own deaths.
Who were the Pharisees?
The identity and worldview of the Pharisees are much more clearly shown in the Gospels. Below, I highlight a conversation from the Gospel of St. Luke, between Jesus and the Pharisees that clearly exposes their hypocrisy and their evil desire to rule over their fellow men.
"While he was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him, so he went in and took his place at the table. The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not first wash before dinner. Then the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? So give as alms those things that are within and then everything will be clean for you.
“But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honor in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces. Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves on which people unknowingly walk.”
One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us, too.” And he said, “Woe also to you experts in the law! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them. Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. For this reason the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. Woe to you experts in the law! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”"
Given this sufficient background, let us now examine this passage from the Gospel of St.John.
" The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” "
The rest of the story is well known.
Pharisaical nationalism
The texts above should reveal the self-evident answer to us.
Christian nationalism is a modern re-birth of Pharisaical nationalism.
The Pharisees paid lip service to little details of the law, when it provided them opportunity to persecute the weak, but they themselves violated the weighty matters of the law directly and paid no heed to the gods of this world (the ruling class) that violated their culture, nation and laws on a grand scale. In fact, they were often blasphemously and idolatrously in bed with them, unlike the Zealots.
This is exactly what I've observed with the modern Christian nationalist movement.
They have been abused by the State, and deservedly so, because they refuse to repent of their Statism. Internalizing this rage, and seeking not to respond to the true source of their pain, they seek to perpetuate the abuse and trauma cycle on other easier scapegoats. They are moral cowards and bullies. Ignoring those that murder and pilfer at whim, they pick on the weak, the vulnerable, the easier scapegoats, unlike the Zealots.
They seek to institute a regime that sanctions vices (never mind, for now, the illogical and absurd little matter of whether the true dragon/beast regime, the lords of this world, would ever cede their blood-drenched thrones to these upstarts). They fantasize about catching weak or poor folks in vices, often of the same type that they themselves secretly engage in, and futilely struggle against using, often, a failed false religious paradigm of personal hyper-spiritualized pietism, and seek to stone these defenseless scapegoats in an attempt to purge their own guilt consciences.
And, often, in their absurdist flights of fanciful imagination, the scapegoats need not even have committed vices — simple infractions of so-called “laws” imposed by the dragon/beast regime (their purported enemies), such as crossing imaginary lines, is sufficient for these cowards to bear false witness against them and castigate them as “muh culture” destroyers, when these are ironically more culturally akin to what the cowards want than the prevailing dragon/Beast imposed culture.
The Zealots of old and, for that matter, even the Islamic jihadists of today have a more authentic moral fabric than these cowards since they are willing to engage and take on the true dragon/beast regimes that impoverish them, and have no fear of dying in the process — ironically, demonstrating so much more positive valor than this grating new coward-bully class of the modern Pharisaical nationalist. This is a pity really -- when they could have at least been like the Zealots.