Nationalism as Idolatry
Nationalism as Idolatry
Tim O’Connor – CPH President – 7/17/2022
I hopped into my car on Saturday to attend religious services and had to change the radio station because the Kim Kommando show is completely intolerable. I landed upon one of the Christian talk radio stations and happened to catch the teaser for the next segment on myfaithradio.com’s Mornings with Carmen LaBerge. The episode’s title is Rebuilding foundations, starting with families | Loving Christ and His Kingdom above all else.
Now I am sure that Carmen LaBerge has a strong faith in the Lord, but the second topic in the title of this program makes me suspicious. “Loving Christ and His Kingdom above all else” kind of excludes God, the Father. I am also really having some difficulty recalling where it is commanded that we love the Kingdom of God, which is the same Kingdom in which God resides. I can distinctly remember when Jesus taught His disciples to pray to His Father using the Lord’s Prayer; however.
What really floored me, and I mean made my stomach churn, is when LaBerge, at 28:08, said,
“Ya, and I wanted to start there because you don’t want people to um, imagine that what you and I are doing is, you know, tearing down the United States of America or disrespecting her flag or anything like that. Um, for those, for those who listen, um, here with any regularity, they know I’m a flag waving American. But, I am a Jesus honoring, um, cross-bowing Christian first and an American second” [emphasis mine].”
I think it is great that LaBerge and her guest, Pastor David Ritchie, believe in Jesus. I have a gigantic problem with LaBerge for mentioning that she bows down to the cross. You do what lady? You bow down to a cross? You turned the cross into an idol and you have hotshot Pastor Ritchie on your show to tell us that nationalism is idolatrous to really drive the hypocritical point home. ‘Wow,’ I thought, and less than 2 minutes into this 20-plus minute interview I was already highly annoyed by their suggestions and their multiple denials of Christ’s teachings, not to mention His Father’s. But I persisted and listened to most of the interview in the car. It never did get any better.
Even in the same airtime, LaBerge again speaks about the “ultimate glory” of the cross as well as the Kingdom of Christ. The guest actually agrees with her on these points and begins pimping out his book by talking about how clever he was when he was writing it because he differentiated between nationalism and patriotism. When I heard him say this I immediately began rolling my eyes.
Both the host and the guest started talking about the order of things, all well and good. Ritchie, states there is a need for national identity and solidarity for there to be a certain level of social cohesion, and that’s fine too. He claims that nationalists idolize the state based on the criteria of too much love for their country. Those who do this he has declared a threat. He does make a point; however, that when national love is ‘distorted’ then it is a danger. He did not elaborate on how that love for nation is distorted into idolatry. Interestingly, he also does not know the hearts of these men and women to know if they are actually placing nation over God, and I’m sure some of them are. The difference between me and Ritchie is that I would not presuppose that all nationalists have placed nation above God without asking them or having them tell me first.
Ritchie did make me laugh when he equated nationalism to its own religion. He did that right after he said that nationalism is the biggest threat he sees to Christianity. He also claims that nationalism has hijacked Christianity. Christianity hijacked the Bible and decided they didn’t need to follow two-thirds of it, but I’m sure Ritchie didn’t realize that when those profoundly stupid words fell out of his mouth.
What I do agree with Ritchie is the fact that certain political leaders demand to be worshiped. No man deserves to be worshiped – no man has ever walked the earth who is to be worshiped except for Jesus Christ. What I disagree with is the idea that Ritchie has where Donald Trump is turning himself into a messianic figure and people are following him instead of Christ’s teachings and God’s Law (Ritchie never mentions God’s Laws, only the Gospels, but I will help him out here). The second clause is, to an extent, true – there are people who worship Donald Trump, and I find that just as misguided as Ritchie does; however, I do not find it to be a threat.
The reason that I bring up Donald Trump and some of his followers is because the other side is openly doing their level best to silence, bankrupt, jail, and murder anyone who even voted for Donald Trump. That includes millions of Christians who are devout in their faith. The ‘other side’ (democrats) that Ritchie complains about literally stole an election, tried to put a former president in jail based on lies, and is trying to put 500 political prisoners in prison based on heresay. Democrats are doing all of this while being cheered on in the media for committing these acts. Meanwhile, those same democrats and media have done nothing to punish any crimes agents and members and loyalists to their side have committed. Like burning down Minneapolis, MN, the brief national existence of Chaz, and multiple murders, rapes, assaults, and acts of arson, robbery, theft, and burglary.
I’m glad that there is a strong leader who wants America to be great again, but I don’t worship the guy. I do support him for the most part because he wants to stop the lawlessness in this nation. So, if that also qualifies me as a nationalist, so be it.
Ritchie does his best to theologically understand nationalism in his book, Why do the Nations Rage, and the first place in the Bible he looks at is Deuteronomy 32. Deuteronomy 32 describes the evil in which Israel had engaged, the punishments they would suffer, and also the fact that Moses would see the land of Israel, yet never set foot within it.
If I were to grade Ritchie’s biblical interpretation skills I would have a hard time not failing him. First he tries to tie the story of Babel to Deuteronomy 32, particularly verse 8. The Complete Jewish Bible reads: “When 'Elyon gave each nation its heritage, when he divided the human race, he assigned the boundaries of peoples according to Isra'el's population;” It just plain out does not exist, even as a theological commentary of the story of Babel. Babel was mentioned twice in Genesis. The word Babylonian does not appear at all in the first 5 books of the Bible – the Torah. I have a KJV and a Green’s Interlinear Bible and both of them translate Deuteronomy 32:8, where the confusion arises, as ‘sons of Adam.’ An online version of KJV reads “When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel” It is the word Israel which has people debating.
The only way to get to where Ritchie is, is to pretend the translation is referring to ‘sons of God.’ There are some theologians who have decided upon this being the correct interpretation. One proponent of this idea is Michael S. Heiser who decided that a scribe purposefully copied the Bible incorrectly to protect God, and that the correct text reflects God having assigned nations to each of His sons in heaven and Israel is for God and God alone.
The main reason I reject it is because “sons of God” actually refers to the fallen angels, not a heavenly body of angels. Under this interpretation, God claimed Israel as His and gave over the rest of the nations on earth to evil. Until someone I trust (not Heiser and definitely not Ritchie) explains this line of logic to me better, I’ll stick with the Complete Jewish Bible.
So, after failing that point, Ritchie claims that mankind failed the cultural mandate to spread across the earth. That was God’s mandate, to be fruitful and multiply. Then he goes back to Deuteronomy 32 and his interpretation of it so that he can linearly claim an evolution into the idea that, apparently the apostle Paul came up with, about principalities and powers. Then Ritchie claims that Jesus’ resurrection removed the demonic authority over the nations of the world, which a completely bogus theory – look around and tell me what is good and what is evil?
Nationalism, of course, is linked by Ritchie to the ancient pagans worshiping their false gods. Then the topic changed to the January 6 committee’s Boshevik style ‘trial.’ Specifically the host, LaBerge, points to a lying scumbucket named Van Tatenhove uttering the words “All I can do is thank the gods that things did not go any worse.” Mind you she and Ritchie have been arguing against any nationalism, including the Christian variety which would never allow for pagan worship of multiple gods in the first place, yet she is outraged he said that. Frankly, I am outraged that she watched the ‘testimony.’ I am also outraged that the host believes, apparently, that the government had nothing to do with January 6 and that Ray Epps is just some dude who did nothing wrong. The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers though – they are the bad guys. They are the bad guys because those groups will reciprocate force from the government with their own force. In particular, the Oath Keepers were present at the Bundy Ranch and the Bureau of Land Management hates them for it.
A caller asked a one of the questions which I had about the world not being under the authority of evil. Ritchie brilliantly concocts this story, based on Paul’s writings in Ephesians and Colossians, that Jesus is now has authority over the world. Despite his own claim, he then goes on to say that the evil which now has no authority, still have the ability to deceive the church and to lead people into sin. My question is, with what authority do these evil entities do this?
Richie claims that nationalism is just one way these evil entities have tried to get people to stop seeking Jesus. Christian nationalism, to Ritchie, is a nationalism under the “veneer of Jesus.” Wealth ministries and ministries which promote nationalist ideas, Ritchie claims, are the same – both are committing their flocks to idolatry. He wants churches to be apolitical and focus on the Gospel to inform belief, not nationalism nor politics. Of course, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all based on the Laws of God, a fact that neither of these two can arrive at.
All of this will fade away and we all know it. We will all die and be judged. Even as these things unfold, we still should not be frightened. Ritchie does get one thing correct, when we engage politically, we need to do so without fear.
A huge problem with Ritchie is that he runs one of those stupid sing-song churches. It’s not church when there is a rock band playing for 20 minutes out of a 60 minute service. Another problem I have with Ritchie’s theology is that, like almost every other Christian, they have no clue as to what God actually said, thus they cannot actually be holy, because they do not know the Law. They skip the first 1,300 or so books of the Bible. And, it shows.
Nimrod was associated with the fallen angels. In his ploy to return himself to heaven, he decided to built a tower into the heavens. Promising all kinds of riches to the multitude which assisted in the construction of the Tower of Babel, the tower grew taller daily. God saw this, destroyed the tower, and confused the language of mankind. The story has very little to do with nationalism. It has a lot to do with evil again attempting to usurp the power of God.
While Ritchie sat there waxing on and on about how his reformed ideology has allowed him to see the problem of nationalism being the biggest threat to the world, he missed the real point. The current president is a racist pedophile who hasn’t found a Christian tenet which he hasn’t violated. He continuously pushes LGBTQIA+ legitimization, demonizes Christians, demonizes gun owners, and seeks to jail his political opposition. The vice president is a whore who slept her way into political office and who decided during her very short primary campaign, her platform would be to promise to financially, politically, and extra-legally, destroy her political opponents and any supporters of those opponents. Mean tweets and a put a put America first agenda are somehow not okay with Ritchie.
Nationalism, like anything else – cats, cars, and yes, even crosses – can end up being turned into idols. Instead of singling nationalism out, Ritchie should focus more on understanding what Jesus is talking about in the Gospels by reading the Torah, read what the prophets had to say, read what the history has to say about the people’s of the times of the Bible, and realize that Christ came not to abolish but to fulfill. While he is at it, maybe he should sit down and really consider why it is he is so willing to refuse to understand that the Old Testament is still relevant while trying to be friends with the world.