- Feb 5, 2002
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Lately, I've noticed another disturbing trend gaining steam online — self-described Christian nationalists openly advocating for “forced conversions” and mandatory church attendance. It’s not just a fringe opinion anymore. It's creeping deeper into circles that should know better.
At first, it seems so absurd you almost want to laugh. After all, no one — no matter how powerful — can force someone to actually believe anything. You can coerce outward compliance, sure. You can make a man recite “2 + 2 = 5” with a gun to his head, but you can’t make him actually believe it’s true in his heart. The human heart is not so easily conquered — and even if it were, Christians above all people should know that true faith — and by extension, obedience — isn’t manufactured by threats and punishments. It’s born from a supernatural work of God.
Even God Himself, who could easily overwhelm us, chooses not to force belief. Jesus doesn't kick down the door to your heart. He knocks.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).
But that’s not really what these Christian Nationalists seem interested in, is it? They’re not primarily concerned with the heart — the inner man, Christianity itself, the seat of true worship. They want outward religious conformity to their particular fundamentalist system. “Cultural Christianity,” as they call it. They want a visible facade of a Christian society, whether the hearts beneath it love Christ or not — they appear to skip over the first part of the Great Commission (Matt. 28 — to believe, to love the Lord), and jump right to the second (to obey). But what they fail to understand is that cultural Christianity — and true obedience — is only made possible by a nation of individual souls captured by the love of God, not one going through the motions of external uniformity to some state-approved religious “orthodoxy.”
And in doing so, they not only misunderstand the Gospel — they attack the Church itself.
Continued below.
www.christianpost.com
At first, it seems so absurd you almost want to laugh. After all, no one — no matter how powerful — can force someone to actually believe anything. You can coerce outward compliance, sure. You can make a man recite “2 + 2 = 5” with a gun to his head, but you can’t make him actually believe it’s true in his heart. The human heart is not so easily conquered — and even if it were, Christians above all people should know that true faith — and by extension, obedience — isn’t manufactured by threats and punishments. It’s born from a supernatural work of God.
Even God Himself, who could easily overwhelm us, chooses not to force belief. Jesus doesn't kick down the door to your heart. He knocks.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).
But that’s not really what these Christian Nationalists seem interested in, is it? They’re not primarily concerned with the heart — the inner man, Christianity itself, the seat of true worship. They want outward religious conformity to their particular fundamentalist system. “Cultural Christianity,” as they call it. They want a visible facade of a Christian society, whether the hearts beneath it love Christ or not — they appear to skip over the first part of the Great Commission (Matt. 28 — to believe, to love the Lord), and jump right to the second (to obey). But what they fail to understand is that cultural Christianity — and true obedience — is only made possible by a nation of individual souls captured by the love of God, not one going through the motions of external uniformity to some state-approved religious “orthodoxy.”
And in doing so, they not only misunderstand the Gospel — they attack the Church itself.
Continued below.
The rise of coerced ‘cultural Christianity’: A disturbing Christian Nationalist trend
When you drag unregenerate pagans into that gathering by force, you are not expanding the Kingdom You re polluting it
www.christianpost.com
