The Left’s new attack has dropped.
Conservatives across the country are now being labeled “Christian nationalists.” While some writers and pastors have embraced the label, redefining the term in theory, many evangelical Christians are on the defense, and few are ready to own the label in practice. What started as an academic debate is now being hurled at conservative Christians running for office, and last Tuesday’s special state legislature election in Oklahoma was the test case.
Dusty Deevers is a pastor who ran for Oklahoma Senate District 32 and staked his campaign on Biblical truths and principles like banning abortion, pornography and no-fault divorce. He was viciously attacked by other pastors and many self-described conservatives. In fact, Deevers was outspent 10 to 1 — even the president of the Southern Baptist Convention donated to his primary opponent.
Instead of running away, hiding, or changing the subject, Deevers leaned into these issues and won. His campaign shows us a path forward for fighting off this new line of attack on anyone who wants to see Christian morality reflected in public policy.
First, Deevers embraced the “Christian Nationalism” name calling, and his disregard for media labels enabled him to gain the upper hand, go on offense, and shows others how to own the label and use it to win.
In addition to Deevers’ calls to abolish abortion, pornography, and the state income tax, he also ran on explicitly Christian reasons — “for the glory of God” — with an unapologetic platform standing boldly against evil. His win might be surprising to the RINOs who counsel candidates to stay away from hot-button cultural issues like pornography and think an uncompromising pro-life position will have the party losing elections forever.
Deevers shows that doesn’t have to be true.
In addition to the Republican consultants, Deevers proved the moderate liberalizers within his own denominational circle wrong, too. If any candidate were to embrace Christian nationalism in practice, Deevers seems to have done it, and he won even while evangelical commentators like Russell Moore and David French teamed up to denounce Christian nationalism.
For the left, only a certain amount or kind of “Christianity” is allowed in the public sphere. For example, Christian commands to care for the poor, the least of these, those in prison, to show no partiality, and love thy neighbor are all welcome. What is decidedly not welcome is the Christian understanding of the created order: one man and one woman married for life raising the children their union creates.
The prohibitions against sexual immorality and lust, the understanding that all human beings are created in the image of God with inherent dignity and worth, and that to take innocent life unjustly is murder and punishable by death. To embrace the whole counsel of God, including the sexual ethic of the Bible, is not allowed. And so it is attacked and warned against as something to be feared and which threatens our whole constitutional form of government, rather than what it really is, the foundation of our whole Western civilizational project.
Understood rightly, “Christian Nationalism” uses Christian as an adjective to describe the content, norms, values, and expectations of an entity, in this case, the Nation, which is the largest governable unit of society. Another example would be a Christian School, which does not mean everyone in the school is a Christian, but that Christianity will inform or influence the content of instruction, the rhythms of the day, and the rules for participation.
Christian Nationalism does not require that all citizens be born-again believers who have been united to Christ in his death and resurrection, but rather that the Nation, as the largest governing unit, will be influenced by Christianity, it will be promoted and taught, the rules will be derived from and are consistent with the whole counsel of God.
The reality now is that anyone who wants to see Christian morality translated into public policy will be labeled a Christian Nationalist.
Deevers embraced this reality and is a prophetic voice calling the nation ruled by immorality to repentance, reformation, and revival. In a social media video taken at his victory party, Deevers led the attendants, including many kids, in singing the Doxology, then spontaneously, the crowd erupted into “Shout On,” an old American folk hymn that runs in part, “I know that my Redeemer lives, glory hallelujah! … Shout on, pray on, we’re gaining ground, glory, hallelujah!”
These hymns are sung regularly in Christian church services, around many a family dinner table, and as part of family worship and prayer times, too. It might seem out of place to sing the Doxology or hymns about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the victory of the gospel at a political rally. But how different would things be now if it were not so strange? Perhaps there would be fewer Satan statues in state houses and fewer children’s lives destroyed by abortion and bodily mutilation.
Worship is what Christians are called to do with their whole lives: “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Dusty Deevers takes that “everything” seriously. Without apology, he intends to see Christian morals and principles reflected in public policy. Instead of “drawing circles,” Deevers follows the path of Christian faithfulness with bright lines: There will be no transing kids; there will be no satanic worship, and there will be no more child sacrifice.
This is the clarity our moment in time demands.
Paige Hauser is the Policy Director at the Center for Renewing America. Previously, she worked on Capitol Hill and in The White House.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.