I am tempted to judge the Christianity of many who claim the faith but don't ( in my opinion ) live it. Then I remind myself there are some ( maybe many ) who have the same thoughts about my claim of being a Christian and realize judgement of one's personal faith is best left to God. However, I will not hesitate to judge the claim of being Christian when it based on the rejection and perversion of the tenets of Christianity as apostasy. "christian" nationalism is apostasy, a perversion of Christianity and those who proclaim it as Christianity are the false prophets, the wolves in sheep's clothing we are warned about in Scripture. This from Sojourners.....
The God They Preach at the Pentagon
On Dec. 17, 2025, evangelical minister and Republican political activist Franklin Graham led a Christmas worship service at the Pentagon, where he preached about God being a “God of war.” I find it to be one of the most bizarre Christmas sermons ever given, but it was telling. In fact, it telegraphed the foreign policy of the U.S.
A few weeks later, President Donald Trump would order the kidnapping and extradition of Nicolás Maduro to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges. Now is the time for Christians to reclaim the message of peace that is at the heart of the gospel, and to resist imperialism.
While there are undoubtedly many root causes of this violation of international law, one of them is Christian nationalism and its insistence that the U.S. is a country chosen by God. Once a country’s chosenness has been established, all things become possible, from invading foreign countries so that the U.S. can “run” them and control their oil reserves to acquiring Greenland by force.
While this idea has no bearing in scripture, it does represent the apotheosis of one of the U.S.’s most sacred beliefs: American exceptionalism. That hubris has often led to disastrous results for both the U.S. and the world. From the Cold War to the War on Terror, the U.S.’s self-conception as a global police force has led to death and misery, with at least 80 people being killed in the attack on Caracas, Venezuela as the latest example.
That exceptionalism, perhaps best embodied by this administration’s “America First” doctrine, manifests as unlimited power that ignores both international law and the U.S. Constitution. When asked what constrained his actions, Trump replied that his morality was “the only thing that can stop me.” In this understanding of the U.S.’s might and power, the guiding question is not whether something should be done, but whether something can be done. As far as Trump is concerned, anything that constrains America’s power or the will of its leader must be tossed aside.
What is striking about such claims is that they emerge from the idea that the U.S. is a Christian nation. On Dec. 21, 2025, Vice President JD Vance gave a speech at a Turning Point USA event where he argued that “Christianity is America’s creed” and that “by the grace of God, we will always be a Christian nation.” As a casual review of the U.S.’s founding documents reveals, it is a myth that this country was ever meant to be a “Christian” nation.
When dangerous theology becomes policy, Christians have a unique opportunity to propose better ideas about the nature of God, and we can start in scripture. Peace is so central to Jesus’ ministry that it takes a willful misconstrual of his message to imagine a Christianity that is compatible with violence of any kind, let alone imperialism and war. From Jesus’ “blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9), to his straightforward command to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44), it is clear that God is a God of peace, not war—no matter what Franklin Graham or anyone else says.
READ MORE: After Maduro, Venezuelan Christians Pray for End to U.S. Imperialism
It is time to call such characterizations of God what they are: not just bad theology, but the creation of an entirely different deity, one who has more in common with the Roman god of war Mars than the God of scripture. In that same Christmas sermon, Graham said that God “hates” and spent much time dwelling on an obscure story from 1 Samuel 15 that has been used to support ethnic cleansing and genocide. Sermons like Graham’s reveal little about God and much more about the sorts of power that Christian nationalists worship.
In imagining a god with unlimited power and desire to punish, they are ignoring some of the very best ideas about who God is. The Jewish idea of tzimtzum describes how creation came not from the exertion of God’s divine power but instead from God’s withdrawal. In order to create something that was not divine, God had to recede to create a space for that thing to exist. This idea is echoed from a Christian perspective in Marilynne Robinson’s fantastic book, Reading Genesis, where she argues that restraint is one of God’s key attributes. In making human beings, Robinson argues that “God must practice almost limitless restraint,” leading to her conclusion that “to refrain, to put aside power, is godlike.”
Especially in a time when the line between church and state is being blurred, ideas about God and the use of power are tangled up with one another. If God is all-powerful and all-vengeful, then the state can pursue its goals without any hindrance or accountability. But if God is fundamentally restrained, discretionary, and extremely thoughtful about the use of direct intervention, that models what good use of power looks like for the state as well.
It’s laughable to imagine that God would be in favor of the U.S. kidnapping the leader of Venezuela and seizing control of the nation and its lucrative oil reserves, and yet that is exactly the sort of idea that Christians are forced to confront head-on. It wouldn’t be the first time that Christian theology has been used to justify U.S. aggression. During the Vietnam War, the popular evangelist and Franklin Graham’s father, Billy Graham, as well as Archbishop Francis Spellman, and former Christianity Today editor-in-chief Carl F. H. Henry all lent theological and ethical support to U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Spellman even blessed B-52 bombers with holy water.
Theology is never neutral; it can be used to bless bombers or fight imperialism. As in previous times, Christians are confronted with a choice. As German liberation theologian Dorothee Sölle warned in her 1990 book The Window of Vulnerability, “We have learned to use our tradition. If we do not, it will use us.” We cannot allow Christian nationalism to remake God in its own violent image and use theology to advance its own ends. Instead, we must forcefully advance a theology that makes peace—not power—holy.
Michael Woolf is the senior minister of Lake Street Church of Evanston in Illinois.
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