Plymouth Monthly Meeting
Endorses a Minute 
Rejecting Christian Nationalism

Plymouth Monthly Meeting endorses the minute forwarded by Lancaster (Pa) Monthly Meeting rejecting  Christian White Nationalism.  Click here to read the minute. Friends are asked to take some time with this minute and reflect on what our personal and corporate Quaker response to Christian Nationalism movement will be in the everyday moments of our lives. Fellow citizens of our community have and are currently feeling the impact of this perversion of Christianity, be it anti-Semitic actions or racial hatred and/or exclusion. Christian nationalism replaces the love of Christ for all people with political idolatry that is self centered and as old as the golden calf.

A working definition of Christian nationalism from the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary
"Christian nationalism, in short, is a worldview where one’s theological imagination is co-opted by state power. It exchanges the church’s loyalty to the Lord of Peace for a false god fashioned by the myth of American exceptionalism. In fact, Christian nationalism is a form of political idolatry that distorts our knowledge of God and neighbor through a xenophobic, racialized and militarized gospel that is at odds with the life and teachings of Jesus."  "In this sense, Christian nationalism is a worldview in which one’s ethno-racial identity becomes a more powerful controlling narrative than one’s baptismal identity “in Christ.”

Two recent blog posts by Drew Strait a Anabaptist Minister address his experience and thoughts about Christian Nationalism.  “Our Moral Pandemic: Christian Nationalism and Political Idolatry,” which appears on the Sojourners website. And in the Bring The Peace series: “The Bible and Christian Nationalism.”
He proposed some actions for consideration:

Break the silence - Talk about political idolatry
Define Christian nationalism -and own the Churches part in creating Christian nationalism, then lament.
Preach the whole life of Jesus - bear witness to the myriad ways in which White Christian nationalism is incompatible with the life of Jesus. Incarnate and become active participants in the ways of Jesus in our world today, including the ways of neighborly love, inclusive table fellowship, divestment of money and care for the poor interrupt patterns of oppression and sin in our world.