Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 430 ｜ Is 'Christian Nationalism' a Threat to Evangelicalism？｜ Guest： Nathan Finochio

00:00:00.000 hey guys welcome to relatable today i am talking to nathan finocchio you guys probably i know a

00:00:16.420 lot of you do you follow him on instagram um and you know of him you know of theos university

00:00:22.320 the online seminary that he is a part of today we are going to talk about a whole host of things

00:00:28.200 it's really a wide-ranging conversation that i know that you guys are going to like because he's

00:00:31.940 super interesting we are going to talk about deconstructionism um he's a charismatic and so

00:00:37.840 he's going to talk about some of the issues that he sees in kind of his part of uh the christian

00:00:43.040 evangelical world and then we are going to have a conversation about christian nationalism nationalism

00:00:49.720 imperialism um he's got some really interesting perspectives on that and he has a lot to say

00:00:56.600 that honestly i don't think that we talk about in a very serious way very much in the christian

00:01:01.720 evangelical world and so we're going to have that conversation and because progressives are having

00:01:06.380 that conversation so that means that we need to understand what's going on so i'm really excited

00:01:11.460 for you to listen to this so without further ado here is nathan finocchio

00:01:18.820 nathan thank you so much for joining us can you first tell everyone who you are and what you do

00:01:28.940 yeah so my name is nathan finocchio and i am the founder of theos you and theos seminary theos you

00:01:38.360 is a subscription based theological uh education site basically we condense um kind of full length

00:01:52.960 bible college courses uh from you know say let's say the the book of romans from like 36 hours to

00:02:00.020 do about six or eight hours um have a uh a wide uh ecumenical range of teachers uh at theos you and

00:02:09.900 people pay you know 14 bucks a month and they subscribe i'm a i'm a charismatic um evangelical

00:02:18.280 politically conservative uh guy and so that's kind of the space that i live in and uh we have about

00:02:26.660 just over 4 000 subscribers kind of worldwide about a quarter of them are pastors of of charismatic

00:02:35.920 evangelical churches um so that's that's kind of uh that's kind of what i do yeah that's awesome

00:02:42.680 tell me why you guys started they asked you we started they asked you because we we feel like

00:02:50.640 a couple things firstly we believe that um the average person sitting in the pew on a sunday morning

00:02:59.160 in an evangelical charismatic church uh their their uh their desire for theological depth is

00:03:06.960 dramatically underestimated um number one number two we feel like uh the charismatic evangelical world

00:03:17.800 is sort of the wild wild west theologically and um and many schools are slipping into sort of a

00:03:27.920 progressive liberalism theologically and um so we just wanted to do something about that we wanted to

00:03:35.300 we wanted to be a part of the solution for what feels like an unraveling of the evangelical charismatic

00:03:45.000 uh movement which i you know has been has been conservative for for decades uh but is now

00:03:52.600 yeah kind of become kind of a swing you know uh yeah swing state so to speak yeah and it's not just

00:04:00.880 the charismatic world it's not just the evangelical charismatic world obviously that's not the world

00:04:05.600 that i occupy but i see that kind of liberalism deconstructionism post-modernism infiltrating

00:04:12.500 you know the the southern baptist convention which certainly has been seen as some kind of pillar of

00:04:18.620 conservatism for a long time why why do you think that's why do you think that's happening why do you

00:04:24.460 think this kind of post-modern liberalism is infiltrating so many parts of the church that

00:04:29.220 used to be seen as staunchly conservative yeah uh a couple of reasons um i think that

00:04:38.200 there's a crisis of authority um and so so so so firstly i'd say it's epistemological i think that

00:04:47.920 kids the younger generation um has learned um an epistemology that lends itself to deconstruction that

00:04:59.040 lends itself to progressive um theology and that epistemology is that uh i i can't trust

00:05:07.820 traditional forms of authority i can't trust the church i can't trust my own history so you know

00:05:15.160 america they're taught america's bad they're taught the church is bad they're taught the bible hurt you 0.90

00:05:20.000 know hurts people um and that love is the most important thing and self is the most important

00:05:26.940 thing and so to me it's a it's a crisis of authority it's a crisis of uh and there's just an immense

00:05:35.120 um multiplied pressure on these young people to make moral choices and not be moral monsters like

00:05:43.780 america like the church um so that that to me it's like it's it's sort of like a it's a it's a it's a

00:05:52.320 conundrum of i don't want to be man like america's bad the church is bad i don't want to be bad so i need

00:06:00.320 to sort of but but but i i think that god is right and god is good so i don't want to throw god out i

00:06:08.000 don't want to i don't want to throw jesus out entirely it's interesting ali like nobody's really

00:06:13.140 throwing jesus out they're just giving jesus a new accent and putting new clothes on him um yeah and

00:06:20.380 that that's kind of what you know that's obviously that's deconstruction that's the most frustrating

00:06:24.640 thing so it's like you know they want their cake their cake and and they want to eat it too

00:06:29.380 so that that's kind of my my yeah yeah little minute spin yeah i mean there's so many different

00:06:37.100 factors i think that have gone into why we're in the place that we're in and evangelicalism can you

00:06:44.960 talk a little bit more about deconstruction there are some people that they they don't know what it is

00:06:51.460 and we're also told by people that almost like you said like almost sound biblical like they sound

00:06:57.080 like they really love jesus saying that deconstruction is actually a key part of

00:07:01.680 sanctification that job deconstructed his faith and so there might be some people listening who think

00:07:07.420 you know deconstruction is awesome and wonderful and it's something that we all have to do can you

00:07:12.480 kind of just break that down for us yeah sure i mean i think you do a wonderful job

00:07:17.740 um yourself but uh just a just a couple of thoughts i think that

00:07:22.600 we all we all sort of um so deconstruction i think is misunderstood to be education right so

00:07:34.040 so um you know for example i grew up in a charismatic community and there were things in the charismatic

00:07:40.380 community that i didn't necessarily like and so i sort of you know went out exploring and i decided

00:07:47.440 that there were probably some excesses there's some weird teachings on faith there's some you know

00:07:51.120 so but that's that's that's just i mean that's that's what you do you as you grow up you you start

00:07:57.220 to you know read and you start to read the reformers or you read you know the the patristics or

00:08:02.260 whatever and you just add knowledge to your faith which is what you're supposed to do as a christian

00:08:07.840 deconstruction is questioning um the meta narratives so it's kind of like you know is the bible even true

00:08:19.220 what parts are even true so it's it's it's deacon i mean eve was the first person to deconstruct

00:08:25.300 right god told her thing and she decided to question god's word you know who god is which is an extension

00:08:34.220 of who god is and that's what deconstruction is deconstruction is basically going you know what

00:08:38.920 i'm willing to turn this whole thing upside down because ultimately i don't trust anybody including

00:08:47.180 god myself is the locus of authority and i only trust myself and my experiences and once again coming

00:08:54.200 getting back to the epistemological factor there um so that's what deconstruction is and very few people

00:09:00.520 come back from it very few people return right to orthodox um to historic orthodox christianity so

00:09:08.360 it's it's because it's you know once you start going down that path of you know you're tugging

00:09:14.820 you know deconstruction has its whole community it's kind of like if you start you know obsessing over

00:09:20.700 um you know i don't know fitness you know fitness has its it's it's a whole community you know you

00:09:27.880 start wearing fitness fit fash and you see you know and you start working up in garages you know

00:09:34.720 like so deconstruction has a whole thing to it and people get into that and they start following all

00:09:41.280 these accounts and they just start literally talking babble nonsense yeah right and that actually

00:09:48.040 is a perfect point that leads to the question that i was about to ask is that we're talking about

00:09:55.280 epistemology and how they view you know truth through the prism of themselves the only thing

00:10:03.440 like you said that they can trust is themselves their feelings their lived experiences i actually

00:10:07.440 saw a post the other day that said like your uh your marginalized status and your lived experiences

00:10:15.780 are holier than the bible so that i think is a good summation of what deconstructionists think but

00:10:23.480 at the same time even though in that like hyper individualistic personal subjective way of

00:10:29.980 obtaining knowledge they all end up saying the same thing so really they just replace what they see as

00:10:37.000 religious dogma and orthodox christianity for other kinds of religious dogma they say that it's just

00:10:43.400 through them that they're finding truth but they all have the same talking points and so it seems like

00:10:49.460 they're just adopting they're adopting a new doctrine and they are still believing in some

00:10:55.560 kind of absolute truth because surely if you just trusted yourself you would all be kind of coming up

00:11:02.180 with different ideas of what faith and what jesus and what god looks like but they all think that jesus

00:11:07.260 was a transgender communist so like where does that happen like where are these people going to get this 0.93

00:11:13.160 information to get their new dogmas and to get their new faith it's not just their lived

00:11:17.900 experiences they must have some kind of source yeah i reckon that there's there's definitely

00:11:22.880 you know there's there's unity among uh the orthodox and then there's unity among the periphery

00:11:29.440 and there are some key players in the peripheral uh the the peripheral world of christianity i would

00:11:37.880 say like richard roar would be one of them um brian zahn would be one of them um these are some you know

00:11:45.620 some some some some authors that they that people you know eventually gravitate to um and so you know

00:11:54.240 they they obviously they like you said they have a dogma they have there is a there is some sort of

00:11:59.500 fellowship some sort of a common held system of belief um but i think that at the end of the day

00:12:06.780 it's probably motivated by um once again lots of motivations perhaps one of the motivations is that

00:12:15.260 they you know they have a misguided sense of love and and to me that's that's what's one of the ear

00:12:22.620 marks or the a watermark of um of richard roar and brian zahn is that you know god is never retributive

00:12:30.600 in his in his justice everybody gets to go to heaven you know rob bell um so it's a it's a it's

00:12:37.140 a it's a christian heresy all their heresies are christian which is hilarious and you're right you

00:12:41.320 know that nobody's deconstructing to become you know to worship the norse gods right like the norse

00:12:47.660 gods are cruel the norse gods are horrible nobody's nobody's deconstructing to become a pagan

00:12:53.260 all of the um all of the deconstructionists are just christian heresies so that's kind of cute

00:13:00.520 yeah that's interesting and why is it you mentioned this before like why is it that they try to

00:13:07.240 not just retain jesus but like you said give him new clothes recharacterize him and then really like

00:13:14.940 detach him from the trinity i've noticed because they don't want to think that he has anything to do

00:13:20.680 with the god of the old testament even if that even existed they would probably say like how do

00:13:26.900 they how do they get that like why do they hold on to jesus so tightly and yet the jesus they hold on

00:13:32.560 to is not even the jesus we see depicted in the gospels why not just let go of jesus altogether

00:13:37.740 because because i think that they're nervous i think they're scared i honestly think that they

00:13:44.540 believe that there's an afterlife it's it's a it's really hard to like the last thing that a

00:13:52.600 deconstructionist has to do is scrub their conscience to basically sear their conscience

00:13:58.780 of uh of this uh of the idea that there is an afterlife because i do think that that we all do have some

00:14:08.260 sense of justice like surely the the world is broken it needs to be put to right and i think that most of

00:14:14.260 them are going okay i don't like orthodox christian i don't like organized religion but i'm going to

00:14:19.440 hold on to jesus because then i think that i i still squeeze in somehow so it's i think it's sort of

00:14:26.100 their fire insurance and and you know you don't get rid of uh the you know even you know the psyche

00:14:33.980 i mean it's burned into you the the reality of hell right like the the and that there's surely

00:14:41.860 there'd be a justice so i i think i think that's exactly it that the the heresies are christian

00:14:48.780 because they're scared to to just let go to totally let go yeah i also think that if you can cast

00:14:59.780 jesus into whatever image you want it's kind of like what c.s lewis talks about in um screw tape

00:15:06.940 letters about social justice christianity using jesus or using christianity as a means to their

00:15:13.460 ends i think jesus is a really nice mascot because like you said you can kind of retain your

00:15:19.680 christianity but you can you know believe whatever you want to believe and jesus just comes along for

00:15:27.540 the ride he can make you feel good about your political activism if you believe that he was a

00:15:31.740 palestinian you know freedom fighter who just you know advocates for all the things that you advocate

00:15:37.880 for so i think it's also like a righteous sounding way to be to be liberal um and to be a secular

00:15:49.220 leftist that jesus is kind of just coming along for the ride of your ideological journey yeah i think

00:15:56.460 it's that's similar to what you said though that having jesus still at least pat you on the back

00:16:01.220 and still be your cheerleader that makes you feel like you're on the right path even if you've

00:16:06.580 abandoned all idea of christian morality yeah that's that's absolutely it yeah shaking shaking jesus

00:16:15.540 is going to make you really nervous because um you know it's interesting well you quoted c.s lewis

00:16:23.760 and uh isn't it funny kind of an aside here that c.s lewis is now like a right-wing talking point

00:16:32.440 i i think i saw you say that on instagram i would love for you to give me an example of that so people

00:16:39.920 are saying like if you quote c.s lewis then you're what like you're a bigot or you're on the right or

00:16:45.920 what is it well for example like c.s lewis writes an essay on capital punishment he writes an essay on

00:16:55.300 you know in the same one as he writes about retributive justice on just desserts um he writes

00:17:01.660 uh in the abolition of man he absolutely slams socialism um yeah he writes on patriotism like

00:17:11.080 quite uh quite profusely and he and patriotism and kind of nationalism are somewhat synonymous in

00:17:19.660 terms of his descriptions as descriptors um you know lewis is for all intents and purposes orthodox

00:17:25.920 uh mere christianity is is is just cat it's just high anglican catechism um and so all that to say

00:17:33.860 you know c.s lewis was sort of like he was like in my world particularly when i grew up he was like sort

00:17:38.940 of like left of center and like all of my social justice friends would like quote c.s lewis and now

00:17:45.400 like none of them quote c.s lewis uh which i think is absolutely hilarious oh in the screw tape letters

00:17:52.000 you know c.s lewis uh talks about how christians are christians will will use social justice you know

00:18:00.260 to to get their means that that you know the that like social justice is essentially um a ploy of the

00:18:07.360 enemy you know to to kind of socialize christianity and make it palatable but really they're you know

00:18:14.220 they'll have other um ends so it's just it's hilarious um you know as you read c.s lewis

00:18:20.860 you talked about um you mentioned their nationalism and patriotism that is also um like a flashpoint

00:18:43.480 in christian conversations right now that a lot of the people i would say not even just totally

00:18:49.720 progressive christians but like people maybe center laughter in the center they're really afraid

00:18:55.000 to say anything about american exceptionalism or that america is a great country there's even been

00:19:00.260 this like towards the fourth of july and then we hear all this stuff about christian nationalism being

00:19:06.040 the biggest threat to christianity people like beth moore have said things like that and you've really

00:19:10.920 pushed back against that in a way that i haven't seen anyone else do because i've kind of been like

00:19:17.140 well no i don't think christian nationalism is it is a big threat and you have kind of said what's

00:19:21.880 wrong with christian nationalism so i kind of just want to hear your perspective on all that

00:19:26.280 yeah so so i think that christian that okay so so uh i'll try to lay this out um as best i can so

00:19:35.900 firstly we all have a nationalistic picture right like would you would you not agree that every

00:19:43.320 everybody has a nationalistic idea like as in i want the country should be like this the country

00:19:48.700 should be less christian or more secular or more like like doesn't wouldn't you agree that everybody

00:19:55.700 has a nationalistic ideal yeah like you're saying everyone has an idea of what they think the country

00:20:03.560 should be like correct yeah exactly so christians are just honest about how they want the country to

00:20:12.660 be um yeah we want we we want our legislation to be informed by judeo-christian principles we

00:20:21.620 right all legislation is moral um and so we that that's we're just we're we're frank we're honest this

00:20:30.160 is this is what we believe people who are are secularists you know draw from this that everybody

00:20:34.920 draws from some sort of moral pool right so um so my my my first contention is that we all have a

00:20:43.940 nationalistic ideal uh this is what the country should be like we all vote um we all engage politically

00:20:50.880 um all of our justice initiatives they all come from some sort of moral pool so so when you say

00:20:57.360 christian nationalists i think to myself i you know if jesus was building a country

00:21:03.720 like wouldn't that be cool you know like what if we followed jesus's ideals of you know loving people

00:21:10.960 and and and defending people and so so you know at first glance you know just on face value christian

00:21:19.440 nationalists seems like actually that's a great idea you know to to have a country you know i wish all of

00:21:25.200 god's people were you know were prophets like why wouldn't wouldn't that be great so number one

00:21:30.540 number two though i found i've come to learn uh there's a book uh written recently about about

00:21:37.520 christian nationalism the the the title escapes me at the moment um but basically like is it the

00:21:44.700 winning back america for god one yeah yeah that's it when it it's about it's from like the

00:21:51.140 progressive perspective right correct yeah and basically what it does is it just caricatures

00:21:56.920 it basically takes the name christian nationalist and then caricatures this this concept so it so

00:22:04.840 instead of it meaning like christian and nationalist which we should talk about what nationalist means

00:22:11.480 it puts these two together and it's like christian nationalists you know hate immigration christian 0.98

00:22:17.820 you know like and just it's a litany of ridiculous characters hate interracial interracial marriage 0.97

00:22:24.900 they said that um which i don't know where they get this information i think they they base it off of

00:22:30.880 like one misguided poll or something like that and they decided they does everything that is bad about

00:22:36.960 anyone they decided okay like let's make a list of that and then let's say that people who are christian

00:22:44.000 nationalists according to our definition like hold on to those character qualities like not liking a 0.93

00:22:49.560 black and a white person getting married yeah yeah exactly it's just all ridiculous so so so that is 0.97

00:22:55.500 kind of a working and i was seeing christian nationalists pop up everywhere on instagram you 0.96

00:23:00.160 know people going you know we need to repent of christian nationalism and i'm like what are you

00:23:04.380 talking about like what you know and i kept on asking people to define what it was like in christian

00:23:10.960 nationalism yeah total sincerity you know like would you please tell me what and nobody would

00:23:16.640 respond to me absolutely nobody would respond to me finally i got a pdf uh which was basically a

00:23:23.940 um sort of a a a skeleton or a sketch of what that book was and then i began okay got you okay so

00:23:32.680 it is a pejorative term um and these are um these are the descriptors etc so

00:23:38.460 uh and i i kind of worked my way through it and kind of responded to it it's just it's just a lot

00:23:43.720 of nonsense but um nationalism so one of my favorite authors uh gk chesterton uh who was a mentor of c.s

00:23:51.380 lewis c.s lewis said of chesterton i only ever added water to his wine um so a lot of of lewis's views

00:23:59.480 are in chesterton um and and chesterton was a and he he self-defined as an english nationalist

00:24:07.440 and when he talked about nationalism he didn't talk about uh in he didn't he didn't mean it as

00:24:14.920 imperialism so this is this is one of the issues that people don't understand about nationalism

00:24:19.260 nationalism is not imperialism so imperialism is when you violate the sovereignty of another country

00:24:28.500 like for example um you know hitler was hitler a nationalist yeah in some ways he was a nationalist

00:24:36.060 but it wasn't his nationalism that got him in trouble um it was his imperialism that got him in

00:24:41.320 trouble right he wanted he wanted the whole world to be the third reich um so nationalism is a it's a

00:24:50.660 passion for your own country and it's a passion for the sovereignty of your own nation um in this

00:24:59.140 way chesterton thought that it was the opposite of um it was the opposite of selfish because you're

00:25:05.220 championing other people not yourself um which i thought was pretty cool and and when he took when

00:25:10.160 chesterton talked about nationalism he loved it because he wanted the french to be french and he

00:25:15.420 wanted the english to be english and when he visited france he's like man i don't want to hear english

00:25:19.400 spoken i want to hear french spoken and i want to eat french foods and i want to be totally immersed

00:25:24.880 in the culture but when i returned to england i want it to be english and so uh his for example

00:25:31.080 chesterton was a stout defender believe it or not at you know the time that he was really writing in the

00:25:37.020 uh the early 20th century um a staunch defender of indian nationalism like you know for example like

00:25:44.820 you know gandhi and that whole movement like hey you know like we want the right of self-determination

00:25:50.040 that's ultimately what nationalism is it's it's the the right of self-determination we want to determine

00:25:56.320 as a country um who we are and what we want to be and we don't want the british to tell us who we are

00:26:03.560 and what we want to be he was a staunch defender of irish nationalism you know let the irish be irish

00:26:10.280 let them be self-determining let them be their own country that's pretty cool stuff nobody would 0.73

00:26:15.820 would would say today you know that indian nationalism sucks and that it's evil or that 0.97

00:26:22.120 irish nationalism sucks or even you know for that matter scottish nationalism i mean we all 0.99

00:26:26.280 everybody watches that movie braveheart and we all cry and we all hate long shanks and we all you 0.96

00:26:32.320 know freedom and we paint our faces blue and we're obsessed with scottish nationalism but for some

00:26:37.900 reason there's a disconnect when we talk about american nationalism and scottish nationalism and that

00:26:43.460 right there's the problem so yeah american nationalism is a desire for self-determination

00:26:49.880 now the problem with american nationalism is there's there's there's kind of two views so

00:26:55.560 in my estimation trump was an american nationalist he was not an imperialist for the most part um an

00:27:03.360 imperialist is is somebody who so for example i mean let's just take the eu and the un for an example

00:27:09.000 um those are imperial structures so um the assyrian empire the egyptian empire the babylonian empire

00:27:19.380 those were imperial empires right they they they conquered and then they imported their culture and their

00:27:27.240 ideas etc and imperialism american imperialism for example looks like a starbucks on every corner

00:27:34.440 you know of you know you're in germany and you there's a starbucks you know you're in japan there's

00:27:40.320 a starbucks it's horrible and um and then more importantly the eu right like or the un for example

00:27:49.320 those nations regularly violate the self-determination and sovereignty of other nations and they do it by 0.99

00:27:57.560 force right like yeah and and they're unelected bodies who are pushing other elected bodies around

00:28:06.440 and they do it with the force of the american military machine and so there's two types of americanism at the

00:28:13.300 moment there's this imperial americanism and then there's a there's a there's a american nationalist

00:28:19.120 um ideal and the american nationalist ideal is hey we want the right to self-determination

00:28:26.520 and then and so if you add christian nationalism that is just simply um we we want our country we

00:28:34.020 want to vote christian we want to be christian we want to invite everybody to be christian hey if you

00:28:38.720 want to vote secular if you want whatever but we think that our ideals are going to be better ideals

00:28:43.440 and we're going to vote that way and we're you know of course going to be tolerant but we're not

00:28:47.800 going to we're not going to be imperial so that's kind of how um now the reason why nationalism got

00:28:55.360 such a dirty name um because before world war ii everybody was a nationalist like everybody was

00:29:02.600 talking about man you know like you know germany needs to be german and belgium needs to be belgium

00:29:07.240 and you know france needs to be french and every everybody should be what they are etc but after world

00:29:14.700 war ii people falsely diagnosed the german problem with uh misplaced nationalism which a the reason why

00:29:25.080 germany was defeated because other nationalists defeated him b once again uh hitler was an imperialist 0.71

00:29:33.820 he was trying to you know i mean obviously he had other problems like you know killing jews for example 0.53

00:29:39.760 but he wanted everybody to kill jews that's imperialism right like he wanted the polish to treat 0.97

00:29:45.640 the jews in such and such a way um and um and then you know so so so so what happens is after the 0.92

00:29:54.280 after the war everybody begins to go on a tirade and begins to blame you know nationalism well

00:30:00.380 nationalism is why this happened well no hitler was the scorpion's tale of 150 years of of frederican

00:30:09.640 exceptionalism like that that was the issue the issue was that you guys thought that you were you

00:30:16.720 know the cat's meow and you'd been telling you know that you were you know superior even in your race

00:30:22.900 to everybody else and then you know you wanted to you wanted to create an empire you were imperialists

00:30:30.340 you weren't just it wasn't you weren't just naturalists desiring the right of self-determination

00:30:34.900 you're imperialists you thought you were better and you wanted to conquer everybody so um right so

00:30:40.780 people were unable to properly diagnose nationalism at the end of world war ii and they just went along

00:30:47.060 with this thing and we're like yeah nationalism is bad and then that was adopted in the academy

00:30:51.640 right oh yeah national so you know you know in the 1950s and 1960s all of a sudden we start to see this

00:30:56.360 whole uh kickback against nationalism and now nationalism is a dirty word and now it's becoming a pejorative word

00:31:03.040 and let's say patriot not nationalist and the issue is now uh yoram azoni has a book called the virtue of

00:31:10.380 nationalism which i highly highly highly recommend uh he's actually uh he's he's a jew he's an old 0.99

00:31:16.740 testament scholar which is kind of fun and he is a he's a an israeli nationalist and he talks about

00:31:24.200 there's just i could go on and on about about nationalism and about the book and about his views but

00:31:29.320 uh chesterton does the same thing chesterton talks about how the a nation is less like a business

00:31:35.380 and more like a family a nation is less a group of individuals and more a family like a in a marriage

00:31:44.380 you know you get into a marriage you marry a woman two individuals kind of coming together and it's

00:31:48.900 sort of like a business contract but then after a while you start having kids everything changes i mean

00:31:53.760 those kids aren't in the relationship with you because it's a business right there there are other

00:31:59.160 loyalties um and so his his idea here is that nationalism understands that nations are more than

00:32:08.960 individuals and there are other loyalties and when you don't um when you disregard those nuances

00:32:17.520 of those extended and complex loyalties that's when you start to get into political trouble um so all

00:32:24.620 that to say that's sort of my my two cents on on christian nationalism i think it's a great idea

00:32:29.640 i think that it's a good idea i think it's a god idea i think that nations are a god idea um you know

00:32:37.180 the the scriptures the book of revelation for example talks about the nations bringing their wealth

00:32:40.820 so um that's my two cents i have a lot of thoughts and a lot of questions so so i think that there are

00:32:51.220 like your definition of nationalism which i would agree is simply saying that we need to put the needs

00:32:58.820 of our country before the needs of another country if you are the leader of that country and you would

00:33:05.220 say that that's a good thing that in the same way that a family would also in the same way that like

00:33:11.080 a mayor would or a governor would it's funny how people say that putting america first like that was

00:33:16.880 trump's line america first oh that's bigoted that's so wrong that seems to be what a lot of left-leaning

00:33:22.200 christians had a hard time with like that's prideful that's what we need to repent of jesus doesn't care

00:33:27.480 about america all that kind of stuff but you would never blame the mayor of tulsa for saying hey

00:33:32.460 tulsa is the best city in the country i love the people of tulsa and i don't care i mean i i'm sorry

00:33:39.620 but i don't care about what baltimore needs or whatever it is my priority is tulsa and i'm gonna

00:33:45.660 put the needs of the people of tulsa before the needs of the people of sacramento or whatever no one

00:33:51.180 would fault someone for that and actually you would probably think it was really weird if the mayor of

00:33:57.360 tulsa was like you know i really actually care just as much about dallas as i do about tulsa you'd be

00:34:03.580 like no you're a horrible leader but for whatever reason when it comes to national leadership and like 0.50

00:34:09.120 you said not of any other country but of america people think that's prideful if the leader of kenya

00:34:15.280 said i love kenya i love kenyans i love kenyan values and i want to put kenya first there's not a

00:34:22.120 leftist in america who would think that that's bigoted or wrong or supremacist but because i think

00:34:27.820 like you said i guess after world war ii and i hadn't thought about that the west started i guess

00:34:34.400 you know thinking that oh nationalism is bad exceptionalism is bad which i i don't think

00:34:40.880 exceptionalism is bad i think it's totally fine if someone from australia thinks australia

00:34:45.180 is the best country in the world like i want their leaders to think that i want them to like

00:34:50.560 australia i want them to be patriotic and people also i think that they get confused between that

00:34:56.420 mentality which like i like you said um i think is good and then thinking that like that by saying

00:35:03.900 that you're saying that god thinks that americans are superior to other christian or like other people

00:35:11.600 in the world and i think that's where when people say you need to repent of christian nationalism

00:35:16.040 that's what they are assuming that patriotic americans think that i think that god loves us

00:35:22.360 better than they love someone from south america or that we are god's chosen nation like israel in the

00:35:30.200 old testament and america not christians but america is the city on a hill and people from brazil don't

00:35:37.520 matter i think that is what they think they are critiquing when they critique christian nationalism

00:35:44.020 do you agree with that 100 they they think that that there's there's this hilarious idea that

00:35:54.120 americans it's a caricature that conservative americans don't care about the world don't care about other 1.00

00:36:02.400 people think that you know that jesus is american the jesus is white like it's it's so stupid it's such a 1.00

00:36:09.900 stupid caricature meanwhile uh you know evangelicals um you know feeding the world but we adopt more 1.00

00:36:20.260 kids from third world countries you know uh by ratio we give we we started all of the you know like 1.00

00:36:28.400 world vision and and compassion etc we you know we go on everybody goes on mission trips every i mean

00:36:35.140 i remember being dragged to haiti a couple times by my dad um you know that that's what we do as

00:36:40.660 conservative christians we that's what you do you you get involved you you go to the soup kitchen you

00:36:45.600 know like you that's what we so it's just utter and total nonsense it's it's it's um it's a it's a it's a 0.57

00:36:55.480 caricature and it doesn't hold up um but it's convenient right like and and and it's it's a great way to

00:37:03.040 bludgeon um conservatives for going yeah no i i believe in you know uh for example i'm a canadian

00:37:10.060 and i i live in the united states and you know on a visa um and i've been here for for 10 years

00:37:16.260 and you know i have to i by all means for all intents and purposes i'm i'm an i'm an immigrant

00:37:22.840 um and i believe in the process of immigration you gotta know who's coming into your country but

00:37:28.600 if you're conservative and you say that um particularly if you're a white evangelical 0.64

00:37:33.840 right automatically you don't care about people you just you hate people and conservatives hate 0.88

00:37:40.160 people and you're a you're a christian nationalist you don't want anybody who's not white or christian

00:37:45.880 to come in the country no that's literally never said that although hey uh right would it be a bad

00:37:52.080 thing if we had if people that came to america wanted to be american you know like and and they

00:37:59.280 held some of the american philosophy well there is no american philosophy actually there there is

00:38:03.300 there actually is american philosophy um so you know and that's a whole other conversation

00:38:09.960 yeah do you think this is my other question that i thought about when you were talking do you think

00:38:16.680 that imperialism how you defined and described it is always wrong because you kind of described it as

00:38:25.320 trying to like import or export i guess ideas into another country you also kind of talked about like

00:38:34.040 the exporting of power and influence in other countries but you also talked about like exporting

00:38:38.660 businesses like starbucks into other countries like those are all different forms of maybe a kind of

00:38:44.180 imperialism do you always think it's wrong because you kind of contrasted it to nationalism which you

00:38:50.440 think is good but it sounds like you think imperialism is always wrong is it always wrong in your

00:38:55.180 opinion no no no so for example i'm not saying that that you know for like if they ask you that i mean

00:39:01.980 my business is in like you know 60 countries or something so i don't think that doing trade and doing

00:39:10.160 business etc is is wrong um imperialism is it is no so for example like yoram has yoram has only calls

00:39:25.460 the eu the fourth reich which i think is hilarious um and he just basically says like germany's still the

00:39:33.380 one that is setting all of the pace they're the ones that are making all the decisions for everybody

00:39:39.860 else in the eu so it's still german rule but it's economic um so can there be kind of you know

00:39:50.980 economic you know warfare yeah absolutely um am i saying that i'm not i'm not comparing that to trade

00:40:01.300 i'm just saying you know if you don't do this well then we won't lend you this you know so you know you

00:40:05.660 have to fall in line and you're violating somebody else's sovereignty you know like what if what if

00:40:10.520 greece doesn't want to let in any more refugees or immigrants they're like literally hey guys we 1.00

00:40:15.960 have no money we haven't had any money for 20 years right but the eu goes well if you're gonna be a

00:40:21.780 part of the eu and you're gonna get bank loans from us then you have to it's got to be open doors

00:40:25.400 bring bring the cages down bring the fences down right that is that's the fourth reich

00:40:32.040 as unpopular as it may sound um so that's sort of what i mean more by imperialism but for example

00:40:39.920 um i don't i i like the world the way it is and so that that doesn't mean that a japanese person

00:40:47.860 you know can't open up a chick-fil-a you know i mean like bring chick-fil-a to japan by all means

00:40:54.000 um but i like japan because it's japanese and that it's not american and that's i think one of the

00:41:02.440 the the i think the fundamental understandings of nationalism is is that nationalism is just about

00:41:09.260 nations keeping their cultures and and being the way they are and thinking the way they think and 1.00

00:41:14.640 and allowing them to be that way um and not um economically muscling them into this that or the

00:41:24.480 other thing yeah i think also it can't just be defined as like any other culture trying to influence

00:41:34.960 another culture because like you talked about okay well we defeated the germans in world war ii 0.95

00:41:42.720 because of not just german imperialism but bad german imperialism based on bad ideas and we decided

00:41:50.320 like no i'm sorry germany like you're not gonna do that and we're gonna push back on you so i guess

00:41:56.900 you could argue that that was a form of imperialism from the allied forces saying i'm sorry germany like

00:42:03.420 you don't have a right to do that and i think that i think that we have to make a distinction there

00:42:08.720 because we don't want to be morally relativistic because right is right and wrong is wrong and the

00:42:13.780 problem with the third right was not just imperialism was not just nationalism is that it

00:42:17.820 was a bad idea it was a bad idea like objectively it was a bad idea and so when you have good ideas

00:42:24.020 like we actually want that to influence like i do think american foreign policy has been misguided in

00:42:30.600 some ways like we thought that importing capitalism into china was going to make them be this free

00:42:36.580 democracy like that didn't turn out well it just gave them more power to be to be communist but

00:42:42.980 then you look at like you know the british colony of hong kong like importing western values into hong

00:42:49.080 kong was really good for hong kong like they wanted those western values like they wanted that western rule

00:42:54.960 of law and now that they're under the rule of china like they have no autonomy or no freedom so

00:42:59.280 i think it's also important to distinguish between like trying to influence people with good ideas

00:43:05.360 is good influencing people with bad ideas is bad and i i'm not sure like i don't know if we can

00:43:12.000 necessarily say that that's imperialism but i also think it's important to just be objective morally

00:43:17.980 that yeah some ideas are really bad to import and some ideas are good yeah exactly so i totally agree

00:43:23.420 like i don't think imperialism is influencing people with good ideas i think imperialism is

00:43:28.400 right right so um yes the american reaction for example you know england was being bombed um

00:43:37.400 holland had been invaded poland had been invaded so germany had violated the self-determination

00:43:45.260 of other countries and so when we when we declared war on germany we weren't fighting in germany first

00:43:51.340 we were fighting in places where they had muscled for our ally yeah shown imperial strength if that

00:43:57.640 makes sense so you know an imperialistic war is a war where you violate the sovereignty of somebody

00:44:03.960 else um for you know for for so for example you know augustine as a christian you know i'm an

00:44:11.080 augustinian in terms of you know my philosophy on war and augustine believes that defensive war

00:44:17.080 is the only just war so for example the americans coming to the aid of the south vietnamese

00:44:24.100 that would that's a as far as i'm concerned that's a just war if your allies going hey we're being

00:44:30.760 killed right now and we need help that that's a just war that might be the most uh you know um

00:44:38.400 controversial thing i'll ever say um but that that's what i believe so but that's not a but

00:44:44.120 but the war in vietnam was not imperialistic in the sense that america came uninvited into the war

00:44:51.700 no america came invited into the war by their south vietnamese allies who were perishing

00:44:57.780 yeah that is that's controversial because now we look at american history through the lens of

00:45:06.460 american strength is always bad it's always been the source of oppression and repression and it's all 1.00

00:45:13.160 it's also interesting how if you like that kind of worldview if you point out to someone who

00:45:18.320 believes that like well look at all these other countries that are still oppressing their people

00:45:22.760 that are corrupt that have nothing to do with america still somehow conveniently it always falls

00:45:27.900 back on american imperialism it always falls back that it's actually america's fault that africa is poor

00:45:33.580 and not the fact that china is actually colonizing and imperialistically invading those countries as we

00:45:40.620 speak right now and exploiting them that's a great example i think of what you're talking about 0.73

00:45:44.680 if you're overweight and you're black it's it's white supremacy yeah that's the critical race theory 0.95

00:45:52.280 worldview everything has to fit into america bad white bad evangelical bad now evangelical has been kind 0.98

00:45:58.920 of like put into that i saw an article in the new york times the other day how white evangelicals

00:46:04.680 are going to like stop the vaccination effort and um and basically arguing okay white evangelicals are

00:46:14.080 killing people because of this and then they linked to the they linked to the study that shows what

00:46:20.820 white evangelicals think about the vaccines well the majority 55 percent of white evangelicals plan to

00:46:26.640 get the vaccine so that they buried that lead that the majority of white evangelicals plan to get the

00:46:32.900 vaccine and they simply talked about well there's still a large percentage that don't and because

00:46:37.400 of that they're preventing people from getting the vaccine when actually the largest populations of

00:46:41.660 people who are skeptical about the vaccines are not white um and so yeah it's become like the same 0.71

00:46:47.160 people who are saying that you know christian nationalists are are everywhere and that we're the the

00:46:55.700 source of the problem they're the ones that have created this boogeyman they've created this boogeyman

00:47:00.460 that has been um i don't know it's just been seeping into american culture i guess for a very long time

00:47:06.800 yeah okay let's finish by oh go ahead go ahead it just delayed for a second nothing i have nothing

00:47:16.060 nothing okay uh let's finish by quickly talking about your book and telling people where they can

00:47:24.140 can find your book why you wrote this book hearing god and what it's about

00:47:27.940 yeah i wrote the book hearing god because i wanted to hear god um i wrote it because i was um

00:47:35.920 my background is growing up charismatic and um and as i began to sort of study you know the

00:47:45.960 scriptures and ask more questions about my you know i'm still charismatic i still identify as

00:47:49.780 charismatic i still believe uh that god talks to people and um but uh i just felt like um maybe my

00:48:00.960 my people the charismatic evangelicals needed um just a guide on you know how to hear god um and

00:48:09.860 specifically that god speaks you know very practically and that the supernatural isn't always spectacular

00:48:15.040 sometimes it's super ordinary um and so like for example like reading the bible well the bible is

00:48:21.380 inspired by the holy spirit and the holy spirit is never going to say something that contradicts the

00:48:27.040 bible because those are his words um so just stuff like that it's sort of like a it's some it's somewhat

00:48:33.840 of a memoir of growing up charismatic um meets laying out foundationally uh how how god speaks god speaks

00:48:42.500 through parents he speaks through mentors he primarily i mean first and foremost he speaks

00:48:48.740 through his word right but i kind of outline it um and then i sort of deal with some charismatic

00:48:53.460 myths it's a bit of a myth busting book so you know does god speak through you know you know if i just

00:49:01.020 flip the you know the the bible and i just put my finger down is that how the bible works is that how

00:49:06.660 is it like like a harry potter map or something um so that's kind of the uh that's the the long and short

00:49:13.380 of it yeah and where can they find that anywhere they want to buy their books yeah amazon um barnes and

00:49:21.000 nobles yeah and you're on instagram that's where i enjoy following both you and your brother you do a lot of

00:49:28.780 myth busting as well on instagram you take posts and kind of break them down a lot of people who listen to this

00:49:34.700 podcast and follow me follow you and they send me you and your brother's post because you guys

00:49:40.020 with a lot of good humor and also in good faith um rebut a lot of the craziness and the chaos that

00:49:46.540 we're seeing with god's word i really appreciate that i appreciate theos you i appreciate all the

00:49:52.060 resources that you are putting into the hands of people they're hungry for truth and the only place

00:49:56.580 where they're finding something masquerading as truth is these progressive deconstructionist

00:50:01.140 instagram account so thank you for for offering alternatives to that and always offering

00:50:07.740 interesting perspectives i really appreciate it yeah well the feeling's mutual i love your

00:50:12.580 instagram account you um your stories they do get a little bit long at times i will say there's a lot

00:50:18.400 of text and it's very small so could you help a brother out and get a little bigger do you have readers

00:50:24.560 what's readers do you have like eyeglasses oh eyeglasses that you can yeah you might you might

00:50:33.640 need it no i know that's true sometimes i have a lot it's typically when i'm copy and pasting like a

00:50:37.780 big chunk of scripture but you're right okay i'll start to break them up i'll start to break them up so

00:50:43.660 the old like you can read them no but you can't because you can't fit it all on there and sometimes

00:50:50.360 like i need to reference i need to reference like this stupid post and so it has to be seen 0.62

00:50:56.340 i can't make the fonts bigger i'm not purposely making them small it's just like this is what can

00:51:01.380 fit but i i hear you i take your feedback i'll apply it okay good no i appreciate how thorough you

00:51:06.960 are i like like i know that if i'm going to read your stories and when i'm reading through them

00:51:11.140 like i appreciate how thorough you are so like you know like you you you put in your resources

00:51:16.440 this is why this is the link you know like you're really good for that i i need to be better at that

00:51:21.820 well that's because i've just noticed that you know people a lot of people i you probably get this

00:51:28.600 too but i'll have talked about something one million times and people i'll get messages being like why

00:51:33.800 don't you ever talk about this or why have you never defined crt and i'm like oh my gosh if i define

00:51:39.500 this one more time i think the people who do follow me are going to freak out because i've talked about

00:51:44.280 it so much and so there's just like i i realize that there's so many people that miss contacts

00:51:50.020 and need contacts and also who have no idea what you and i are talking about like there are just

00:51:55.020 people that are coming in and they need a lot of information and so i do try to provide some

00:51:59.820 context you do so anyway uh thank you so much thank you for taking the time to talk to us um i really

00:52:07.340 really appreciate it and we'll put the links to theos you as well and anything else maybe uh your book

00:52:12.720 as well in the description to this podcast cool thank you

00:52:17.080 you

00:52:19.460 you

00:52:21.460 you

00:52:23.460 you

00:52:25.460 you

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 01, 2021

Ep 430 ｜ Is 'Christian Nationalism' a Threat to Evangelicalism？｜ Guest： Nathan Finochio

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 01, 2021

Ep 430 ｜ Is 'Christian Nationalism' a Threat to Evangelicalism？ ｜ Guest： Nathan Finochio

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Ep 430 ｜ Is 'Christian Nationalism' a Threat to Evangelicalism？｜ Guest： Nathan Finochio