BIBLICAL BASIS FOR THE STRATEGY
Even people who do not believe in God understand that something radical needs to happen to change in the thinking, feeling and actions of Christian Nationalists. They show no signs of relenting in their efforts to expand oppressive legislative policies that limit the freedoms of marginalized Americans while hacking away at democratic institutions.
Believers and unbelievers have come to the realization that logic and reason will not change the trajectory of the Christian Nationalism movement. If logic, reason, civility, kindness, persuasion, education, bribes, voter registration efforts and other conventional social/political strategies aren’t working quickly enough and broadly enough to allay the social carnage, what other strategies are there?
When human strategies fail, all that remans is to do what God says.
God’s strategy for establishing order and justice is that everyone obeys his laws/commandments. But the laws he wants people to obey are not religious laws made by men. He wants them to obey his spiritual laws.
God’s spiritual laws are summed up in these scriptures:
Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, ” ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
God’s Commands About How to Relate to Him and to One Another provides a long list of scriptures that give practical examples of what it means to “love your neighbor as yourself.” A second set of scriptures with practical examples of “loving your neighbor as yourself” is found in God’s Commands About Doing Justice.
That’s it. Loving your neighbor and doing justice for your neighbor are equal to loving God. People who do these things display evidence that God’s spiritual laws are written on their hearts because the good things they say and do are the natural overflow of their hearts. People who have God’s laws written on their hearts are considered by God to be righteous and created in his image. God sees their hearts as being clean and pure.
People who do not obey God’s commands about loving your neighbor and doing justice for others show clear evidence that God’s laws are not written on their hearts because the overflow of their hearts are words and actions that are inconsistent with God’s spiritual laws catalogued and summarized in Doable, Common Sense Strategies for Achieving Political and Social Unity . People who do not have God’s laws written on their hearts are unrighteous sinners in God’s eyes. God sees their hearts as evil and impure.
Religious people see sin in the context of moral and religious laws. God defines sinners as people who are lawless. The law that defines lawlessness, however, is God’s spiritual laws written on the heart — not man’s cultural laws, not man’s religious laws, not man’s civil laws, and not man’s institutional laws.
God’s concept of sin is very different from man’s idea. People who do not obey God’s Commands About Doing Justice for Others and God’s Commands About How to Relate to Him and to One Another are sinners in God’s eyes. Christian Nationalists, therefore, are sinners because they clearly break God’s spiritual laws when they violate his commands regarding loving your neighbor as yourself and doing justice for others. In other words, they need major heart changes so that they can obey God’s spiritual laws.
Heart change is the only hope Americans have for a nation where people live at peace with one another. A nation that fully embraces diversity, equity and inclusion of all people is not possible unless wholesale heart change occurs. When Christian Nationalists obey God’s spiritual laws they will stop identifying as Christian Nationalists and stop enacting laws that benefit them while oppressing others. Political and religious labels will not be important to them anymore. Their focus will be on loving their neighbors and doing justice for them — not on fear, religious rights, wokism, money, and control of the seven mountains of American culture. This is why the strategy of changing hearts and minds is the only strategy that will be good for all Americans.
There is nothing in the bible that even vaguely implies that God’s prescribed strategy for confronting individuals and movements that perpetrate injustice includes anything other than changing hearts. Religion, political activism, social activism and prayer are not among God’s strategies. This provides an important clue for people who want to defeat Christian Nationalism.
The strategy of changing hearts and minds is clarified in these verses:
Isaiah 32:6 For fools speak folly, their hearts are bent on evil: They practice ungodliness and spread error concerning the LORD; the hungry they leave empty and from the thirsty they withhold water.
Matthew 12:34-35 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.
Matthew 15:18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them.
Luke 6:45 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
Psalms 73:7-8 From their callous hearts comes iniquity ; their evil imaginations have no limits. They scoff, and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression.
Psalms 10:1-10 Why, LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak, who are caught in the schemes he devises. He boasts about the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the LORD.
In his pride the wicked man does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God. His ways are always prosperous; your laws are rejected by him; he sneers at all his enemies. He says to himself, “Nothing will ever shake me.” He swears, “No one will ever do me harm.”
His mouth is full of lies and threats; trouble and evil are under his tongue. He lies in wait near the villages; from ambush he murders the innocent. His eyes watch in secret for his victims; like a lion in cover he lies in wait. He lies in wait to catch the helpless; he catches the helpless and drags them off in his net. His victims are crushed, they collapse; they fall under his strength.
Christian Nationalists attitudes and behaviors are plainly identified in the above scriptures as wicked fools whose words and actions flow out of their callous, evil hearts. They are also plainly identified as breakers of God’s laws about doing justice and loving their neighbors.
They wrongly believe that they are guided by the bible, but they are very select in what they claim to obey. Worse yet, they obey the literal words of the bible and have no understanding of the symbolic meaning of those words. Therefore, they think they are righteous, but they are actually sinners. This fact is a major clue that informs the strategy of changing hearts and minds.
Careful review of the bible reveals that it cycles through six basic themes:
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- Loving God
- Loving your neighbor
- Doing justice
- Judgment of sinners who do not love God, do not love their neighbors, do not do justice for their neighbors, and do not repent for the sin of breaking God’s spiritual laws.
- Redemptive heart change of people who do repent for the sins of breaking God’s spiritual laws.
- Peace
The entire bible is composed of Symbols, Signs, Types, Parables, Allegories, Copies, and Shadows that elaborate on these themes with many different examples. Redemptive heart change followed by peace in the heart is the logical progression of those themes. It is impossible to appreciate the strategy of changing hearts and minds without knowing the biblical basis of redemptive heart change as it is revealed in these scriptures:
Psalms 51:10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Ephesians 4:23-24 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
Ezekiel 18:31 “Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die, O house of Israel?
Ezekiel 11:19-20 I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. 20Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God.
Ezekiel 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
All bible stories point to peace that follows redemptive changes in hearts and minds. This does not describe Christian Nationalists who obviously do not have peace in their hearts.
When hearts and minds of Americans change, the division, pain, injustice, bitterness and acrimony that now plagues America will be replaced by peace, unity, civility, and justice. There is no way to predict when this change will happen in the hearts of any individual Christian Nationalists or the movement, but it is safe to predict that hearts and minds will not change until some Americans adopt the strategy.