This insightful presentation was given by Pastor Bryce Bowman at the Village Church Religious Liberty Weekend in August 2023. It explains how nations came to be, and how they stand as a bulwark against totalitarian globalism (Revelation 13:3).
Some time ago I began to notice how often nationalism was spoken of in a negative context. Now it seems to be have become the boogeyman behind every evil known in the world today. I found this new narrative interesting simply because a short time ago nationalism was seen as virtuous.
Since 1939, sixty-seven nations received national independence from the British Empire and so I began to ask myself “Why is it that so many people in the media politics and even in the church have become hostile toward nationalism?”
In fact what even is nationalism? Is it good or is it bad? What is the alternative to independent nation states and why do we even have nations and nationalism in the first place?
As I reflected on these questions one thing became very clear to me. The term nationalism has become a term much like many other terms thrown around in our post-modern world. It means whatever the person using it wants it to mean, which means that it actually means nothing.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr said this “We must think things and not words or at least we must constantly translate our words into the facts for which they stand if we are to keep to the real and the true.” Have you noticed today that a word you thought meant this yesterday means something different today? One of the Hallmarks of the age is the weaponization of words.
We no longer think in things but on the superficial meaning reassigned to words by those who want us to think a certain way. Not according to the truth or the reality of the thing but according to a narrative of how they want things to be.
One of the things I learned when I was studying in college was define your terms. That's very important because if you don't, you open yourselves up to misunderstanding.
So I want to begin there. You know traditionally, nationalism was understood as a principled perspective that regards the world as governed best when nations are able to chart their own independent course, cultivating their own traditions and pursuing their own interests without interference. This is what this sentiment led to — almost 150 countries in the last hundred years received their national independence. From France and from Britain and from the United States and from other countries.
Now this is the opposite of imperialism or globalism — which seeks to bring peace and prosperity to the World by consolidating power, generally through the use of military force or coercion in order to unite mankind under a single political regime.
As the problems in our world increase, we shouldn't be surprised because Jesus warned us that problems were going to increase as we near the Second Coming (2 Timothy 3). But as these problems increase we are witnessing an escalation of the struggle between these two divergent ideas. Nationalism and globalism—a conflict between the local and the global. Between independent nation states and the global economic and political order in which national boundaries hinder what many see as the universal progression necessary in solving the world's problems, and in moving us toward the realization of paradise on Earth.
Danny Roderick in his book ‘The Globalization Paradox’ wrestles with the dichotomy between these two ideals. He says a major move in the direction of global governance requires a significant diminution of national sovereignty.
National governments would not disappear but their powers would be severely circumscribed by supranational rulemaking and enforcing bodies empowered and constrained by democratic legitimacy. What he's trying to convey is the idea that these two ideas are mutually exclusive.
You have independent nation states or you have global worldwide regime with centralized power and control.
This should concern us because different nations are founded upon different values. In our nation, the United States of America, we are afforded protections by the United States Constitution that those living under other forms of government don't have. And we're very quickly seeing those protections eroded away.
Now before we answer the question relating to why ‘nationalism’ has become one of the paramount evils of our time, let's look at why nations exist in the first place.
Isaiah 14:12-14 is one of the texts that pulls back the curtain of the great controversy. When Satan rebelled in heaven his plan was to gain control by overthrowing the government of God and establishing himself as the ruler of the universe.
This represents the inception of imperialism, expanding one's territory by force or coercion. Fortunately his plans were thwarted by the ensuing War in Heaven.
We know that from Revelation 12 and other places. He was cast out of heaven but unfortunately he was able through deceptive diplomacy to coerce Adam to join his rebellion, establishing the headquarters of his new empire on Earth.
After the human race had been deceived in aligning themselves with Satan,
God in his mercy wouldn't let us fall completely under Satan’s control without providing a plan by which each person could individually choose to be free, if he so desired.
Genesis 3:15 contains the first revelation of the gospel promise in which every human being longing to be free from Satan's power can find Hope. We should rejoice in that. Genesis 3:15 says,
“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
Enmity
Not only did this promise indicate that there would be a Redeemer to come but God also indicated that he would place within the heart of man enmity, and this enmity was to be a converting grace and a renewing power by which man could withstand the dominion of Satan.
Now Ellen White speaks of it this way she says this enmity is not naturally entertained meaning that it's supernaturally given. When man transgresses Divine Law (she continues) his nature became evil and he was in harmony and not at variance with Satan. Had not God specially interposed, Satan and man would have entered into an alliance against heaven and instead of cherishing enmity against Satan, the whole human family would have been United in opposition to God.
Now I want you to know that enmity is not the ideal, it was necessary as a result of sin. The idea would be for Adam and Eve to have remained loyal and faithful, but God supernaturally interposed in response to sin. The purpose of this God-given enmity was twofold.
Number one it provided a means by which man could resist the power of Satan, and two, it was an external and internal check on Satan's ability to establish absolute universal rule over the entire human race.
The Achilles heel of enmity is in the fact that each individual can undermine it by the exercise of their individual will by choosing to align themselves with the Lord and that's why Satan hates liberty of conscience.
God gave us this gift (liberty of conscience) so that we could freely choose to align ourselves with heaven and not with the empire and kingdom of Satan. Satan was not ignorant of the implications of this promise. The success or failure of his empire, and his ability to consolidate power, control, and authority would be determined by how successful he was in overcoming the God-given enmity against him.
Only Evil All the Time
Within two thousand years Satan was so successful in overcoming the enmity that he was able to claim almost the entire race as loyal subjects of his empire. The Bible alludes to the success of Satan in overcoming the enmity in the heart of man in Genesis 6:5.
The Bible says “And God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Where previously there had been enmity against Satan's kingdom, there was now complete agreement. Evil filled the heart of man.
In order to restrain Satan's power, God intervenes by sending the flood and only Noah and his immediately family escaped this universal judgment against Satan's kingdom.
After the flood, Satan is forced to rebuild and undeterred he commences his warfare against the descendants of Noah, once again working to consolidate power and gain total control of the human race.
Now by the time we reach the Tower of Babel, Satan's empire has again achieved almost universal success in gaining man's loyalty. The Lord said,
“Behold the people is one and they have all one language and this they begin to do and now nothing will be con restrained from them which they have imagined to do.”
God's response is found in Genesis 11. He says,
“Come let us go down and there confound their language so they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the Earth and they ceased building the city, therefore the name is called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of all the Earth, and there from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the Earth.”
Something very interesting happens here. Because instead of destroying the world as he had previously, God dismantles Satan's global empire by confounding the languages and establishing the nations of the Earth.
Vishal Magdawadi in his book ‘The Book That Made Your World’ says, beginning in Genesis 11, the Bible teaches that nations are an invention of the Sovereign God.
Although all human beings came from one set of parents they were separated into different linguistic communities. As a result of human sinfulness, living in a particular nation can be hellish but sovereign nation states serve as a barrier to global totalitarianism.
The Apostle Paul affirms this reality in a sermon to the Athenians in Acts 17:26 he says,
“God has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the Earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.”
You'll remember, shortly after the Tower of Babel God forms a covenant with Abraham that his descendants would become a great nation. Abraham is also told in Genesis 18 and 22 that all nations of the earth would be blessed in him. We are also promised in Revelation 7:9 that the redeemed come from every nation.
Now establishing nation states based on their common language and growing into a common culture and traditions was intended by God to serve as an external means (remember enmity was internal) of limiting Satan's influence and ability to bring the entire world under his centralized control.
God created nationalism as a response and as an alternative to Global imperialism. Nations were to respect each other's borders. Their ambitions were to end with their own borders. They would be characterized by cooperation rather than conquest. Now are independent nation states ideal? No. They were created in response to sin. Do they always work the way God intended? No. Satan can take control of nations and it can be abused.
The Tower of Babel was a tremendous setback for Satan's plans to gain complete control over Mankind and establish a centralized regime. In fact it was a greater setback than the flood, but he immediately continues his global imperialistic designs by fomenting wars of conquest. The goal once again is the consolidation of power through the destruction of independent nation states to undo what God had established at Babel.
And Satan gains enough success that God outlines his future plans in prophecy as
a warning to his people. We find this in Daniel chapter 2, where God outlines the future history of nations through the prophetic image. Since the Tower of Babel, Babylon becomes the first empire of which the Bible states it ruled over all the Earth.
Satan then uses the political momentum gained by the conquest of Babylon to further gain control to the conquest of Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. And with each conquest he's extending his power over the people through the conquest and destruction of other nations as he annexes more and more territory and brings it under his control.
By the time that Imperial Rome reaches its zenith, God decides that Satan's imperialistic plans have gone far enough. Instead of allowing him to continue the consolidation of power through the expansion of the Roman Empire, God places a check on Satan's power by again dividing the world into independent nation states. Daniel 2:41 says,
“Whereas you saw the feet and toes partly of potter's clay and partly of iron the kingdom shall be divided.”
Now it's at this point that Satan changes strategy. He recognizes that the global expansion of empire through Warfare and politics is not sufficient. With the dividing of Imperial Rome it becomes impractical to centralize control through territorial conquest alone (although those efforts continue). We have Louis XIV, Charlemagne we have Napoleon, we have Hitler. Satan continues to try to expand his empire and reverse what happened at Babel through conquest.
At this point in history Satan brings his dream of universal empire into the church. It's a brilliant move that will continue until Jesus comes in the clouds of Heaven.
He begins to use religion to accomplish his designs in establishing his universal control. Through religion he hoped to overcome both the limitations placed upon his power by enmity, as well as by nationalism.
If he can use religion to overcome the enmity he could shift people's loyalty from God and nation to the church. This strategy would serve to soften national boundaries and overcome the limitations to his power brought about by nationalism. It was his plan to use Christianity to unite the divided nations, not through territorial conquest but by spiritual conquest.
Bryce Bowman
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Stay tuned for Part 2 on Religious Imperialism. It gets exciting..