Nuremberg Stadium

Hi, I’m Pastor Lutzer. Many of us are touring Germany finding important sites that have impacted history, and I can’t think of a more important site than where we are today in Nuremberg, Germany. More specifically, we’re actually at the site of the great Nazi rallies just outside of the city of Nuremberg, and you can see to the back of me, that’s the podium that Hitler used to give many of his famous speeches, some of which I’m sure we have seen on YouTube.

We’re at a place where we need to talk about the relationship between politics and Christianity. Now, I’m going to speak about Christian nationalism, and if you disagree with anything that I say, I hope that you’ll wait until the end, because I have a very special word for you. So let’s begin.

What is nationalism? Christian nationalism is when you have the blending of Christianity and a political agenda in such a way that oftentimes the Gospel is lost. Now, if somebody asks me, “Am I a Christian nationalist?” I always have to ask them, “What do you mean?” because there are so many definitions out there. To help us understand the relationship, I want to give you five possible relationships between the cross, which of course, stands for the church, and the flag, which stands for the state.

The first relationship I’m going to describe is when the flag is above the cross, and there’s no place on all the earth where we could more easily and more clearly recognize that kind of nationalism than right here at this stadium. What happened in Nazi Germany is that Christianity was obliterated, and actually, the Gospel became politics. If you read history, you discover that there were pastors who said, “Why should we worry about the miracles of Jesus? Let’s talk about the miracles of Hitler’s Germany.” Heresy! It ended up being demonic. And all of us know that history.

That’s one possible relationship. The other relationship, and I’ve kind of made this up to make a point, is when you have the cross without the flag. I use that for the Pietists. They were not committed to the state … they met in their Bible studies, but they were not involved in the political realities of their culture. You perhaps have heard of the story (evidently true) that when they met together in one church with the train tracks running past them, they always made sure that they were singing because they knew that those trains were full of Jews on their way to a concentration camp. They were not involved, because whatever the world does, the world is going to do. Now, let’s not be too critical because we don’t know exactly what we’d have done.

There’s another relationship that I’ll simply refer to quickly, and that is when it’s the cross against the flag. That’s the Confessing Church, that’s the Bonhoeffers, who say we cannot go along with our government, and therefore we oppose the flag, which in this case, of course, was the swastika.

There’s another relationship, and that is the cross and the flag. Genuine Christians committed to the Gospel, but at the same time identifying so much with a political party or a political agenda that sometimes the issues become blurred. You know, when you think about the United States, you realize, of course, that we really can’t talk about that unless we talk about what happened on January 6. Now some of the initial reports of what happened were inaccurate, but it is indeed a blot on our history, and for this reason, I raise the issue because there were some people who were carrying crosses in the capital, and so in the minds of people, Christianity and a political agenda were combined. That’s very dangerous! As a result of that, unfortunately, Christian nationalism is oftentimes a term used even for those who are just patriotic, people who stand for the flag, people who are willing to commit themselves to their country.

I want to give you another way that we can see the relationship of the flag and the cross, and, of course, it’s my preference. That is when the cross is above the flag. When we recognize that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is always first. When I pass away, and if anyone remembers me, I wish that they would remember that he loved the Gospel. I can’t think of anything greater to think about than the Gospel.

But does this mean I don’t think that politics is important. I think that politics is very important. It’s not ultimately important, of course; it’s the Gospel that is ultimately important, but politics is still very important. I had a friend who gave a lecture recently on Christian nationalism, and I agreed with a lot of it. But then he got to the end, and I am not giving you his name because I might be misquoting him somewhat, but he said, in effect, the great hope of the world is not America. The great hope of the world is Christ. Now, obviously, as Christians, we agree with that. Who would disagree with that? The problem with that statement is this, however – it gives the impression that America is not worth preserving. In other words, let America disintegrate, let everything fall apart because the hope of the world is Christ.

I want to share my heart with you. Rebecca and I have just been in Albania, a country that was under communism, and I have to tell you that every single ministry there is supported by American dollars. Whether the ministries are in India or Africa or around the world, they all have to do with Christian dollars being used to share the good hope of the Gospel. I love America, and that’s why I’m so grieved when people do nothing but trash it. They look at all of its deficiencies; America is far from perfect, and always will be, but politics and the preservation of America, I believe, is very, very important.

As a pastor, I have never endorsed a political candidate or a political party. I do not want to be identified with that, and I wish I had more time to explain why, but I simply lay that out for you. Having said that, however, does not mean that we cannot be involved. I believe in the separation of church and state, but you cannot separate the state from morality. Therefore, what’s wrong with us as Christians being involved in moral issues and pushing our agenda? We don’t believe that we’re ancient Israel, and therefore, America is some kind of a Christian nation we want to create. No … what we want to do is argue for certain values which today are being politicized.

I’m doing this from memory, so I may forget some, but let me come up with perhaps five or six.

First of all, parental rights. That is so critical, and it’s politicized today. Right here in this stadium where Hitler preached, Hitler said things like this, “Parents, you take care of the children, you feed them, you clothe them, you send them to school, but their hearts will belong to the Reich.” In other words, we’re going to have your children, and the whole Hitler Youth Movement proved that. We as Christian parents need to stand up for parental rights. Again, each of these things that I’m going to mention I could speak about for five or 10 minutes, so I’m only going to speak of them briefly.

The whole LGBTQ plus issue. Is it politics? Well, it’s politicized today, isn’t it? Christians have to know how to respond to this culture.

Let me think of something else. Let me go with race. You know, the Bible says in Christ there’s neither Jew nor Greek, bond or free. We are all one in Christ. There’s a transcendent unity among believers. Critical Race Theory comes and wants to tear that apart, and it’s based on a Marxist theory of oppression. There’s no way to get to reconciliation through that means. We need to speak to that issue biblically, but as you know, it’s also a political issue.

Recently in America, there was a woman on national television, and she said, “Christian nationalists believe that their rights come from God and not the state.” In a couple of hours, we all hope to be in the courtroom where the Nazi trials were held. I want to speak to you so specifically. The only basis for human rights is the creation account in Genesis. You can’t get them through the evolutionary process. And if you say that the state gives us rights, that’s exactly what happened in Nazi Germany. That’s exactly what happened under communism. As a matter of fact, people don’t understand this, but you don’t even have the right to criticize the state unless the state gives you the right to criticize the state. If Christian Nationalism means I believe that our rights come from God, well, I guess you have to color me a Christian nationalist!

We could go on and talk about law. The Bible says that righteousness is turned back. Justice cannot enter because truth has stumbled in the public square. I’m going to be mentioning that again when we’re in the courtroom. As Christians, however, we have to recognize that even though there are other issues (I’ve only mentioned a few), we need to be involved in these things, recognizing that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has these implications.

Now, should Christians run for office in the United States? Yes, they should. Rebecca and I know at least one woman in the House of Representatives who’s a woman with great integrity maintaining her Christian faith. I wish that there would be more, but I have to tell you this, that’s not true in all the countries of the world. I was giving a lecture in Russia, in St Petersburg, to a seminary class, and I mentioned that Christians can be involved. And there was this murmur throughout the classroom. Later on, my interpreter says you have to understand that politics here in Russia is so corrupt, no Christian can be involved. Well, that’s a separate issue, but in America they can.

But you say, “Well, Pastor Lutzer, how should we vote?” I’m so glad that you asked me that question! How do we vote? I am not a Republican. I am not a Democrat. I am a Christian, and so I look at the platforms of the two parties, I look at the flawed candidates we have to choose from, and I say which of them is more consistent with my values as a Christian,

We have to realize that there are great differences among us, and we have this opportunity to prove that our unity in Jesus Christ is stronger than our political unity. What you find, just as we found during the COVID experience, is that families are divided, neighbors are divided, but we as Christians have to hang together, because we agree on a couple of things. First, that there are problems in this country that cannot be solved by no matter who gets elected in Washington, because we need a spiritual revival of repentance and faith. We can agree on that, and we can also agree that Jesus Christ is our King. King of Kings and Lord of Lords! We don’t kiss the Democratic donkey, and we don’t kiss the Republican elephant. We bow before Jesus Christ, and we kiss the Son, as it says in Psalm 2:12. It is He whom we worship that we have to kiss the Son in whom we have put our faith and obedience.

Thanks so much for joining us here from Nuremberg.