Jeffrey Stevens is an aspiring theologian. He means well. He writes with the earnestness of a man convinced he’s warning America about a great spiritual danger. But his entire argument begins with a faulty premise: that Christian nationalism is some rogue ideology disconnected from Scripture, history, or common sense. In reality, it’s nothing more than the natural expression of Christian belief in public life. Stevens asks nothing of Islam. Not a word about its political aims, its legal demands, or its cultural self-assertion. “Christian nationalism” is just the latest label for something the Church once took for granted: the belief that a Christian people should shape a Christian culture. Before the critics start shrieking, convulsing, or calling for an exorcism, let me be clear. The Christian nationalism I’m talking about has nothing to do with violence, tribal rage, or the cartoon caricatures the activist class trots out on social media. It’s simply the recognition that American identity, in its traditional and authentic sense, is inseparable from Christianity. A nation reflects its roots. A culture mirrors its creed. Christian nationalism, properly understood, is the cultural expression of Christian belief. Not a call to smash windows or reenact Old Testament battles, no matter how much the professional handwringers wish it were. Stevens builds his case on the idea that Christian nationalism “is not a religion.” But no serious believer ever said it was. It isn’t meant to replace Christianity. It flows from it. The same way courage flows from faith, charity flows from grace, and — as Church history shows — social order flows from belief. Faith always spills into public life; the only question is whether it shapes society in healthy or harmful ways. Remove Christianity from the public square and you don’t get neutrality. Quite the opposite, in fact. You get the vacuum we see today. One shaped by power, money, identity politics, and a rising Islamic influence filling the space where Christian confidence collapses. That’s the real story here, and Stevens never touches it. He also insists that because 1 Peter 2:17 wasn’t written to Americans in 2025, it can’t support any civic vision today. This is biblical interpretation by way of bureaucracy: if the letter didn’t include your ZIP code, it must not apply. Christians have never thought this way. Scripture does not become irrelevant because Peter didn’t sign it “Sent from my iPhone.” His audience spans the centuries because Christ’s claims span the world. The Church didn’t plant monasteries, missions, and universities across continents by pretending Scripture expired with Nero. More importantly, Stevens treats the Great Commission as if it were a polite request to keep Christianity down to a whisper, just in case someone at the Department of Something takes offense. But the early Church didn’t hide. It evangelized nations, shaped laws, established moral norms, and built a civilizational conscience. Our ancestors weren’t ashamed of public faith; they knew a people’s beliefs always form their culture. The real innovation is the modern idea that public life should be scrubbed free of Christianity, as if secularism were somehow holier, cleaner, or more neutral. It isn’t. It simply substitutes Christian order with whatever ideology shouts loudest. And in America today, the loudest voices belong to movements openly hostile to the Church. Stevens never mentions the reality unfolding around us. Mosques grow as churches empty. Imams speak with certainty, even open hostility, while Christian clergy apologize for daring to sound sure of anything. Young men and women who once found purpose in Christianity now gravitate toward substitutes that promise meaning but rarely deliver it. Stevens also argues that Christian nationalism is dangerous because it dares to prioritize the well-being of one’s own citizens. Yet Scripture is filled with the language of covenant people, shared identity, and communal responsibility. Loving your neighbor doesn’t mean abandoning your household. St. Paul says plainly: “If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” Nations are simply households at scale. Taking care of your own doesn’t prevent you from serving others. Charity expands outward; it doesn’t evaporate inward. His insistence that “Jesus came to build a church, not a government” sounds pious, but it ignores the obvious: governments always exist, and Christians always live under them. The question is whether believers will shape the character of their nation or surrender it to secular elites who think faith is fine — as long as it stays behind closed doors. Stevens claims that Christian nationalism puts American interests above all others. But most Christian nationalists aren’t preaching empire; they’re asking for a country where Christian values can survive. They’re responding to a time of nosediving faith, falling birth rates, broken families, and a cultural landscape increasingly hostile to Christianity itself. When the Church is pushed to the margins, Christians naturally begin to defend the ground beneath their feet. Call it patriotism. Call it stewardship. Call it Christian nationalism if you want. But don’t pretend it’s something alien to the faith. He dismisses border security, legal order, and national cohesion as un-Christian, as if Christ’s command to “love thy neighbor” means throwing open the gates and dissolving the nation. But love without boundaries isn’t love. In truth, it’s closer to self-harm — like giving your house keys to a burglar because you “believe in people,” or lending your car to someone who specializes in reversing into lampposts.  Charity requires order. Hospitality requires a home that hasn’t fallen into chaos. And prudence — an actual Christian virtue — requires protecting the vulnerable from systems that encourage trafficking, exploitation, and lawlessness. There’s nothing Christlike about policies that reward criminal cartels while leaving families unsafe. Stevens asks nothing of Islam. Not a word about its political aims, its legal demands, or its cultural self-assertion. He critiques Christians for being too public with their faith while saying nothing about a religion that openly seeks influence in every sphere of life. If Christians behaved with even half the confidence of American Muslim leaders, Stevens would probably write a sequel. Christian nationalism isn’t a threat to America. A faithless America is a threat to itself. A nation that loses its Christian roots will not float gently into secular harmony. It will drift toward whatever force fills the void. Today, that force is a mix of aggressive anti-Christian ideologies and a rising Islamic presence more united, more disciplined, and far more willing to shape the culture than we are. Christian nationalism is not the problem. It is, I contend, a reminder of what many of us seem to have forgotten. A reminder that Christianity built this country. That faith shaped its laws, its people, and its philosophies. And now, in an age of decline, Christians must decide whether public faith is something to retreat from, or something to defend before it disappears entirely. READ MORE from John Mac Ghlionn: The Slow Suffocation of Christian America God in the Age of Pronouns: Father, Mother, or Neither? Imagining a Post-Trump America Where Populism Magically Disappears