As the political and religious left continues to attack Christian nationalism, as a progressive Christian, I find myself increasingly uneasy. It is not that I don’t believe Christian nationalism exists, or that it isn’t dangerous to a pluralistic society with religious diversity and perspective, but the ire and critique is not applied across the board to other forms of ethnoreligious nationalism.
There is often a glaring absence on the political left and in the peace and justice movement to condemn Zionism with equal weight as is applied to Christian nationalism. Among nationalistic expressions of religion, expressions of narrow particularism, and obsessive focus on the justification of one religious/ethnic group over others, Zionism sometimes escapes the condemnation for some reason that Christian nationalism is confronted with.
Christian nationalism asserts that a particular country is founded on “Christian” principles. Its founders or framers were divinely inspired, and therefore, the impetus is to draw those countries back into line with the original framework intended by the founders of that nation. Christian nationalism is a worldwide phenomenon, with proponents in Europe and particularly evident in the United States.
The political/religious framework offered in the United States is that the founders of the country and all of its original documents were divinely inspired through the white men who authored them. You cannot escape the fact that the founders of the United States were white men who were landowners, and therefore, an undercurrent exists where Christian nationalism is built upon white privilege and supremacy. This is true whether it is in the United States or Europe.
The belief is that the malaise that exists in national boundaries is due to the straying from or abandonment of those Christian principles, and the antidote for the national demise is to return to religious inception, thus initiating all the blessings that will flow as a result of doing so.
Hence, we have witnessed the push to place the Ten Commandments in schools, the turning back of the clock on Roe v. Wade, the continued push to publicly fund religious schools, attacks upon the LGBTQ communities, and the demonizing of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
It is presented as if all the problems and the failings of a nation are a result of eschewing “Christian” principles, affirming religious and ethnic pluralism, and because we have removed all the trappings, strictures, and images of so-called Christianity from public life. As a progressive Christian, I unapologetically stand in opposition to Christian nationalism and all its forms of expression.
Zionism is akin to Christian nationalism. A difference in Zionism, however, is that it existed originally as a political/religious trend among a diverse population spread across national borders in Europe that identified religiously and culturally as an ethnoreligious group. Originally, the argument of Jews pursuing a homeland in Palestine was met with skepticism as a political/religious philosophy and existed on the margins. However, the various European pogroms against Jews began to coalesce larger swaths of Jews to strategically reconsider Zionism.
Zionism emerged in the 19th century as an ethnocultural ideology. It sought to establish a national home for the Jewish people that they would control and therefore be free from the ethnic cleansing that arose periodically in Europe. World War II and the atrocities carried out against Jews and other groups in Europe became a major factor for the intellectual and emotional acceptability of the Zionist framework that would result in the colonialization of Palestine.
As the acceptability of Zionism arose as a solution for Jewish security among larger segments of the Jewish population, its political and religious tenets became more wedded to Judaism. This conflation of Zionism with Judaism has become problematic in terms of having any sober political discussions about the realities and consequences of Israeli state policy and the implications of Zionism without being accused of being antisemitic.
Zionism asserted that Palestine is the historical land of the Jews and therefore the Jewish right to the land outweighed any Arab presence or claim. The concept of “transfer,” or what we today would call “ethnic cleansing,” is inherent to Zionism, as it holds that the security of Jews has to be based upon them being the majority and the lessening of any potential of uprisings in response to Jewish occupation. The idea of removing non-Jewish populations and affording non-Jews fewer rights than Jews evidently gained widespread support across an array of Zionist groups.
The religious roots of Zionism focused upon the land of Palestine being promised by God to the Jewish people into perpetuity, with the conquest and subjugation of non-Jewish people resulting. The political roots of Zionism are based upon what is presented as practical strategies of protection, security, and historical rights to the land. The religious justifications of Zionism are questionable, given that Jews largely have appropriated and identified with the biblical narratives as stories of identity and belonging, just as Black people largely reinterpreted the biblical stories as our own identification with God and divine purpose.
The political justification of Zionism is flawed in that it affirms the European colonialization and conquest of non-white lands and the subjugation of non-white peoples. Zionism, though ethnic in character, is a nationalistic European expression of the stealing and conquest of the land of others and the extension of white supremacy in form and practice.
I am offering a brief summation of Christian and Jewish nationalism. I am also raising the ideological and political deficiencies of the left where it condemns Christian nationalism but fails in offering the same kinds of condemnation and critique of Jewish nationalism. One has to ask the question, why?
Each form of religious nationalism is an apostasy to the spiritual and political concepts of Christianity and Judaism. Each nationalism avoids the declarations of justice, right treatment of neighbor, and welcoming the stranger as if it is foreign to the scriptural text. Instead, they turn to scriptures that seem to affirm their narrow and myopic points of view, conquest, and divine justification for subjugation and genocide.
Each form of nationalism deserves and needs to be condemned. Peace and justice organizations on the left, liberal religious groups, and political secular groups need to apply their criticism of religious and political nationalism across the board and in a principled way. I am offering the idea that all forms of nationalism are inherently evil because they strip non-conforming groups of their dignity, security, and freedom of expression.
Zionism emerged, partially, as a reaction to the prejudices and crimes of nation-state nationalism, but the irony is that its adherents responded by creating another expression of nationalism to combat nationalism. This simply illustrates how one evil leads to another.
Christian nationalism has been the backbone of all kinds of evils—from enslavement to the Christianization and genocide of indigenous peoples. It must be condemned in all of its forms, from the past to the present and into any future expression. Zionism must also be subjected to the same types of criticism and analysis, and if we fail to apply the same standard of criticism across the board, in reference to Christianity, Judaism, and even Islam, then we have certainly failed in being any moral voice at all.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views expressed here are those of the author.
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