Classical Theism, Philosophy, and Religion Forum / Is Christianity compatible with nationalism?

**Posted by Miguel** 2/26/2018 9:14 pm

Clinias wrote:
I am reminded of a story:
After years of one humiliating defeat after another, both the military and civil leadership of France were demoralized and discredited. When the Dauphin Charles granted Joan's urgent request to be equipped for war and placed at the head of his army, his decision must have been based in large part on the knowledge that every orthodox, every rational option had been tried and had failed. Only a regime in the final straits of desperation would pay any heed to an illiterate farm girl who claimed that the voice of God was instructing her to take charge of her country's army and lead it to victory. (Ref: Wikipedia pg on St. Joan of Arc)
"God instructing her to take charge"? What? God is a nationalist?

God is a Nationalist.

Where have we seen that before? In the story of Sampson where the Spirit of the Lord descended upon Sampson and began his career of ending the multiculturalism and diversity of the Philistinian/Jewish country. The purpose of God in this story was to break up and move the Philistines out of the territory.

God is a Nationalist.

I also remember the Battle of Myeongnyang (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Myeongnyang)
"With only 12 ships remaining from Admiral Won Gyun's disastrous defeat at the Battle of Chilchonryang, Admiral Yi held the strait as a "last stand" battle against the Japanese Navy, who were sailing to support their land army's advance towards the Joseon capital of Hanyang
...
The actual numeric strength of the Japanese fleet that Admiral Yi fought is unclear; various sources indicate the number of Japanese ships could have been anywhere between 120 and 330 ships, though the low end of this range appears to be a count of actual warships and the high end appears to be referring to the entire Japanese fleet (including roughly 200 supporting non-combatant ships). Regardless of the size of the Japanese fleet, all sources indicate that the Japanese ships heavily outnumbered the Korean ships, by at least a ten-to-one ratio. In total 30 Japanese warships were sunk or crippled during the battle.
Some 12 Korean ships defeated an overwhelming Japanese force.

God is a Nationalist.

Was St. Joan of Arc a Nationalist? Did this French Catholic fight and lead a victorious army, against English Catholics? The French look upon this event as a Nationalist event.

Here is French Traditional Catholics singing homage to St. Joan of Arc to save France from diversity and multiculturalism:Les Brigandes - Jeanne ( J'ai trouvé une épée )
https://youtu.be/Th4vipUPX2E

St. Sampson, King David, St. Joan of Arc, Patrons, Fighters of your People, Pray for us and our nations.

Patriotism is a virtue. Nationalism as I understand it (and I explained it and what it is, so did Brian) is a corruption of patriotism.

The English had no right to invade and rule France; Saint Joan took part in a just war to rightly defend her country, but she (obviously) did not believe the nation or national ethos were above religious faith, neither did she think the Spiritual Power was not superior to the temporal one. One (thankfully) does not have to be a nationalist in order to love and defend one's country and culture. That's patriotism, not nationalism.

(In fact, rather funny that you mention France defending itself from the English. Historically, nationalists - along with communists and jihadists - are the ones who made it a point to aggressively invade other coutries and violate classical Just War principles by putting them below the "national interest")

And as I said, paradoxically, if European nationalists were to be really consistent they'd recognize that Christendom should be above their national identities, as that was at the core of European culture. Hence the pathetic phenomenon of many self-proclaimed "European nationalists" aligning themselves with *paganism*, literally going against the fundamental rock of Europe and ignoring the core part of the last thousands of years of history of their countries and ancestors. It's modernism.

And one doesn't have to be a nationalist to be against globalism, of course. I'm not a fan of globalism -- far from it, actually. But nationalism is another error from the modern period.

**Posted by Clinias** 2/26/2018 10:20 pm

Brian wrote:
“It also is not a coincidence that France, the first nationalist country, was the first country to behead their royalty in the name of Democracy. “

Actually, it was England who was the first in beheading their king. It was Charles I who was beheaded by Oliver Cromwell and his coalition of Levellers and others in their modern republican movement. They were proud to call themselves “Talmudic Commonwealthsmen” because they got their teaching from the Midrash which taught that Monarchy is idolatry.
Prof. Eric Nelson writes:

”The English pamphleteers who took up the position were very much aware of its provenance and enthusiastically endorsed what one of the called the tradition of the “Talmudic commonweathmen”. In doing so, they transformed the politics of the modern world” (The Hebrew Republic, pg 26)

Oliver Cromwell and the Radical Protestant intellectual wing sought to create a Hebrew Republic in England. This was the backdrop to the English Civil Wars. The American Revolution is a carry over of this Presbyterian War. And then it was the Hebrew republican style government that is the American government, that instigated and influenced the French Revolution. Thomas Paine, the intellectual goad of the American Revolution and worked in the French Revolution, even used the phrase “Monarchy is Idolatry” in the first three paragraphs of his pamphlet Common Sense.
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On the subject of nations, let me repeat: LXX Psalm 85:9, “…and all the nations whom thou hast created”. God created all the nations.
Jesus Christ, the Logos, commanded the apostles to go “to the nations”. Now Jesus did not command “go to mankind” (anthropoi). Wouldn’t Jesus have known better, or was He just stupid and not enlightened as the modern Roman Catholic Church? Jesus is pretty clear on the Natural Order.
In the book of Revelation, chap 15:4, the command is “All nations shall come and worship thee….” Still the Holy Spirit uses the term “nation” and NOT the word humanity, or mankind.
And in the Book of Revelation, St. John the Apostle has a vision of heaven. What does he see? First he says there is NO temple. There is NO Church in heaven! But what takes its place is the Lamb Himself. And then, Chap 21:24, “By the light shall the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it. …(26) they shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.” St. John sees NATIONS in heaven! The Natural Order. The Natural Law is eternal and unchanging and the Natural Law reconstitutes Christendom with its Kings and Nations. Remember the Latin for Nation is “One birth”. The characteristic of a nation, of an ethnos is homogeneity.
So we see that there is NO temple in heaven, meaning the Church is not there. The Church Triumphant is split into the Nations just as Jesus said in the Gospel. Go to the Nations, and the saved within them will be reconstituted into their National groupings in heaven.

The real, original Natural Law is eternal and unchanging and as it formed the cosmos, it also works in heaven and in the new rejuvenated cosmos. The real, original Natural Law operates all things, "steering all things from within" (Heraclitus). I see nationalism as a preservative. Nationalism preserves its particular character, homogeneity and culture from dissolution.

**Posted by FZM** 2/27/2018 6:17 am

Miguel,

The English had no right to invade and rule France; Saint Joan took part in a just war to rightly defend her country, but she (obviously) did not believe the nation or national ethos were above religious faith, neither did she think the Spiritual Power was not superior to the temporal one. One (thankfully) does not have to be a nationalist in order to love and defend one's country and culture. That's patriotism, not nationalism.

The Duke of Normandy invaded England and made himself king in 1066, the Anglo Saxon rulers and aristocracy was replaced with a Norman one speaking a dialect of French, there was a major injection of French culture, language, feudalism and so on into England. As a result of the Norman conquest the rulers of England ended up with significant territorial interests in Normandy and other parts of France, intermarried with all kinds of French lords and nobility and the king of England had various claims to the throne of France.

I became curious about when English displaced Norman French as the language of the rulers of England, there is a Wikipedia article with some interesting points:

This amalgam developed into the unique insular dialect now known as Anglo-Norman French, which was commonly used for literary and eventually administrative purposes from the 12th until the 15th century. It is difficult to know much about what was actually spoken, as what is known about the dialect is restricted to what was written, but it is clear that Anglo-Norman was, to a large extent, the spoken language of the higher social strata in medieval England.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Norman_language

(In fact, rather funny that you mention France defending itself from the English. Historically, nationalists - along with communists and jihadists - are the ones who made it a point to aggressively invade other coutries and violate classical Just War principles by putting them below the "national interest")

A mid-twentieth century Nationalist ideology like Nazism would just deny that there was any such thing as just war principles applicable across nations or races at all, part of the foundation of the movement was the denial of many kinds of political/moral universalism in favour of racial particularism. Nazism adds the idea that a hierarchy of races is involved in a kind of Darwinian struggle for survival and that this is biologically determined and unavoidable. I think this kind of thing produced the particularly malign and destructive forms of Nationalism and racism that flourished in Eastern Europe in 1940-45.

**Posted by Clinias** 2/27/2018 9:57 am

The OP is “Is Christianity incompatible with nationalism?” Well, that is very similar to the Marxist phrase “"Nationalism and Marxism are incompatible." (from Marxist.org)”. The other title of Marxism is International socialism. So for a Christian to even ask that question, means that, that Christian makes common cause with Marxism, with Freemasonry and International Socialism. If Nationalism is incompatible with Marxism and If Nationalism is Incompatible with Christianity, then they have the same goals. Then the question is, Is Christianity, Marxism? If not, what is the difference between the teachings of Marxism on nationalism and the teachings of Christianity on Nationalism?

Greg wrote:
“I think you'll find that the thesis that all identities other than Christian identity are contingent and secondary to be a normative thesis. …identities depend on identification: which parts of me do I identify with? Identifying is elective. Sex is fixed. I actually don't think gender identity is; someone can change his gender identity simply when he identifies with a different gender than he used to. . ..So all identities are contingent in the sense that one can disavow them. This includes national identity. I can be alienated from my nation and decide not my heritage as important. In some cases this might be very difficult psychologically, and perhaps impossible given that one has no motivation to do so, as for instance I have no motivation to identify with a different gender than I do. But this is not relevant to the normative question of whether one should make national identity more important in one's life than one's divine sonship.) {post # 6}

What is the first thing created by the baby in the womb right after fertilization?

The fetus’s first identity is that of a member of a family. And that family is the basic cell of the natio. The first identity of the baby is his racial identity. As the fetus develops, the sexual identity comes second.

If as Greg says that “sex is fixed”, then the racial identity is fixed. Because both are created in the womb before the baby is born. We are born “parts of a whole” which one’s natio is the “whole”. We are all sons of our particular Patriarch. One’s racial identity is fixed just like one’s sexual identity is fixed at birth. They are part of our core identities. It is by blood. Do not Socrates and Plato pick up on agrarian sayings all the time. What is one saying “Blood is thicker than water” and “Birds of a feather flock together”. These sayings, grounded in commonsense, point to fundamental truths. (Philosophy is not a pure academic exercise; it is wisdom that is an intuition. and agrarian sayings, peasant sayings are part of this intuition.)

About “gender” identity and the fluid identities. As to “gender” category, that is due solely to Marxist educational/ideological propaganda hatched in the 60s. This was not developed by orthodox Christians. Second, we don’t base laws and principles on flukes. Nature does produce genetic abnormalities, either flaws in the hormones, flaws in physical development and even flaws on the soul. Mankind is afflicted with original sin which is a rebellious spirit. Modern science does not take that into account but Christians must in order to understand reality. Man is constantly “kicking against the goads”. Exceptions don’t make the rule. Some of the arguments on fluidity are based on the rebellious condition of man. On his natural inclination to perfidy.

If one does away with one’s national identity, then one creates a “rootless individual”. Is that what Christianity wants? Rootlessness? The atomized individual? Is that the Will of God? Look at how many adoptees search for their roots? Roots are important psychologically for a lot of people.

This is not an academic exercise, what is going around us and affecting us. How much of this argument is based on the Marxist subversion of our society?

**Posted by Etzelnik** 2/27/2018 1:11 pm

Clinias, you've mentioned Eric Nelson here on several occasions, so I thought you might want to know this.

You've interested me enough to read Nelson's The Hebrew Republic, but unfortunately for you I got too interested. Did you know Nelson also wrote a fascinating book (The Royalist Revolution, currently gracing my bookshelf) wherein he argues that the American Revolution was in fact an assertion of Royalist sentiment against Parliament gone rogue?

I don't know how much I agree with his theses, but if you're going to pick and choose which of his viewpoints hold water and which don't, you had better explain why. Also, fun fact (from Wikipedia). Nelson is a (irreligious) Jew. His grandparents were holocaust survivors.

Last edited by Etzelnik (2/27/2018 1:57 pm)

**Posted by Clinias** 2/28/2018 8:02 am

Due to financial constraints, I am unable to purchase The Royalist Revolution nor can I find it online at Questia. I have read

Allen, Thomas B. Tories: Fighting for the King in America's First Civil War.
Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

which back up in some sense Nelson's book. Anglican Churches were attacked in the American Revolution. It was essentially a war between the Presbyterians and the Anglicans. If the American Revolutionaries could have gotten their hands on King George, they would have killed him. There was a huge statue of an English king in one of the cities, the particulars right now escape me; they tore it down, melted it down and used the metal for munitions! They tore the statue down out of pure hate. Hate was throughout the American Revolution. Huge amounts of Loyalists with their families fled America.
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The OP contends that Christianity is opposed to nationalism. If any one knew of the Greek War of Independence, the Christian Church played a significant role in it:

"The Greek Orthodox Church played a pivotal role in the preservation of national identity, the development of Greek society and the resurgence of Greek nationalism. (ref: http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/History/en/GreekWarOfIndependence.html)

The Greek Orthodox Church was indispensable in the survival of the Greek nation. Under Muslim occupation for over 400 years, the Greek Orthodox church kept their language alive and thru religious festivals kept the small scattered Greek communities alive with a particular Greek culture with dances and music.

Almost all Pagan religions were tied to a particular natio. The set of Pagan gods were their war gods who defended and upheld their natio and developed a feedback loop into their culture. The same can be said for the True God of the Israelites. God was their war god who led them into battle and preserved their culture. All of the gods of the pagans and the Israelites where Nationalist gods.

And we see the same paradigm of Christianity in the East from the Armenians in their country and in their Jerusalem quarter, to the Copts in Egypt. The church is there that preserves their culture and brings solidarity to their people under occupation. That is why the East has developed National Patriarchies, all separate and autonomous.

See, this is what a philosopher does, he looks at the real world, at history; he looks at the totality of reality and in history to garner facts. Eastern Orthodox Christianity is tied to nations and their cultures. There is no dichotomy between Christianity and nationalism. It is a seamless whole at peace. This is a truly carryover from traditional cultures where religion and a national culture lived seamlessly.

Much of the underpinnings to the Protestant Reformation was Nationalistic. The revolution of Hus was not so much against the Church, even though it was one, but it was a Czech revolt against encroaching German migration and takeover of his country.

Nationalism is a powerful force, an instinct, drive that is throughout the world. The Church can not ignore that---nor should it fight against that! How many good people are leaving the Church? How many problems have been incurred in the West, because the Roman Catholic Church is encased in its unrighteous crusade of caesero-papism? Going down the internationalist path, is the death of the Roman Catholic Church.

**Posted by Clinias** 3/05/2018 11:37 am

Does the cat have your tongues?

There is much more to cover, discover, research on this topic, but if nobody replies, the thread dies. I guess that is the plan. There is all sorts of avenues to research. Prof. Smith is a secularist and so his work needs to be corrected. The effects of the French Revolution need to be sorted out. But since that is not going to happen here. I present a paper that discuses this topic from a traditional RC perspective, combining the teachings of Scripture with the Laws of Nature.

The Tower of Babel, The Philosophy of Race and the Genocidal Ideology of Social Justice/Political Correctness
"Philosophy of Race" does NOT mean ideology. It is about what goes on in reality. Jacques Maritain states that philosophy is the Queen of sciences. As Plato says, science is "to know the condition of that which is". "Philosophy of Race" means "to know the condition of race", in the cosmos. It is the mechanics of the natural law that operate both the social insect, and social animal world, which the nations of mankind participate in.

And when the posters here said that racial identity is "contingent and secondary", means that it is non-existent. To say that means to genocide. When it is said, that Christianity is incompatible with nationalism, then Christianity is involved in the process of the dissolution of nations which is a form of soft genocide. It is very sad to see that the Roman Catholic Church is involved in the many processes of soft genocide. There is such a thing as soft genocide, which include, denying race exists, deracination (which is intimated in this thread), ethnic dilution and the propaganda of diversity and multiculturalism.

The Many Forms of Genocide: Hard and Soft. 5th Rev

Almost all the forms of soft genocide require a second crime, and that is the act of Treason. Loyalty goes to one's kinsmen and racial group. To engage in soft genocide from within requires disloyalty.
"Any religion engaged in Treason, is not a religion".

What is going on is that the whole of Christianity is now infected with Gnosticism; the hatred of Nature, the hatred of Particularity. The war against nations/race/ethnos is the war against particularity. To say that one's racial identity is "contingent and secondary" is to end particularity. No farmer pays attention to the universal, he pays attention to the particular. Just as breeds matter, Race matters. As the Roman poet Horace said, "Throw out Nature with a pitchfork, and yet she shall return."

If Christianity is incompatible with nations, then Christianity is incompatible with the Cosmos, and with Jesus Christ who formed the Cosmos.

**Posted by seigneur** 3/06/2018 2:45 am

Clinias wrote:
If Christianity is incompatible with nations, then Christianity is incompatible with the Cosmos, and with Jesus Christ who formed the Cosmos.

Nations are members of the Cosmos just like individuals are members of the society or of the nation. Christianity is incompatible with partiality to any particular nation, but quite compatible with the understanding that the individual body is subject to the cosmic [=world] order, while the soul must be subject to the spiritual order.

There's a hierarchy of nested priorities. The nation is a secondary or even tertiary thing in the overall system.

**Posted by FZM** 3/06/2018 5:47 am

Clinias wrote:
Does the cat have your tongues?

I don't really understand what you mean when you use the terms 'race' and 'nation'. So what do you mean by race and nation? How should we differentiate between different races and different nations?

Last edited by FZM (3/06/2018 5:48 am)

**Posted by Clinias** 3/06/2018 10:44 am

seigneur wrote:
Clinias wrote:
If Christianity is incompatible with nations, then Christianity is incompatible with the Cosmos, and with Jesus Christ who formed the Cosmos.
Christianity is incompatible with partiality to any particular nation, but quite compatible with the understanding that the individual body is subject to the cosmic order, while the soul must be subject to the spiritual order.

You are creating a false dichotomy. There is no "spiritual order". The Catholic Church has always taught the "Moral Order". And the Moral Order is God, Spirits (angels), Patrida (fatherland/nation/race), Family, Departed (forefathers of family/fatherland/nation/race). The Moral Order includes all in it, the spiritual and the natural realms. In one of the earlier posts, it linked to an article on First Things about identity, and using St. Paul's numerous identities. St. Paul is an Apostle.Apostles are professional missionaries. His stance is that of a missionary,---not a teaching on the Natural Order. We are all called to evangelize but there are special circumstances where a few are called to a special ministry of being a missionary. St. Paul is that. What St. Paul talks about is being a missionary. His special case is NOT a standard to be applied to all. The Context shows the truth. St. Paul's condition is different from all of our's condition. He was specially called to be an apostle. We are not apostles. It is wrong to apply St. Paul's missionary mission to the rest of us.

True, orthodox, catholic Christianity is not incompatible to nation, to Nature, to the Natural Order. What has happened is that Gnosticism has infected Protestantism, Catholicism and Orthodoxy. 99.9% of Christianity is Gnostic. What makes modern Christianity incompatible with nationalism, hostile to Nature, is the inroads and values of Gnosticism. All of Christianity, today, has adopted Cultural Marxism; Eric Voeglin points out that not only was Puritainism gnostic but Marxism as well. If one looks at the provenance of Gnosticism, its roots are in Jewish culture--it is a Jewish meme. The Kabbalah is a Gnostic system and many Roman Catholics, such as St. Albert the Great were readers of the Kabbalah. The sophists, which Socrates and Plato fought against, were quasi gnostics. In that article at First Things, it mentions an author that points out that Liberalism is a form of Gnosticism; I have come to the same conclusion. Many Christians in all of its sects is liberal and hence gnostic. To make this "Spiritual Order" supercede the Natural Order, is only a ploy of Gnosticism. Truth does not contradict Truth. The Truth of the Spiritual Realm and the Truth of the Natural Order do not contradict each other, but are a seamless whole, like my body and soul are a seamless whole.