Christ First, Country Second: A Catholic Rejection of Christian Nationalism and Zionism by Jeff Callaway

Christ First, Country Second: A Catholic Rejection of Christian Nationalism and Zionism

By Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

I. The Throne Room Has One Chair

America is not having a political crisis. America is having a theological identity crisis dressed in flag fabric and wrapped in distorted Scripture. Two competing demons whisper lies into the ears of Christians who ought to know better. The Left demands our faith be muzzled, privatized, reduced to a Sunday morning hobby with no bearing on Monday morning reality. The Right demands our faith bow before the altar of national power, that we conflate God's Kingdom with the American empire, that we mistake electoral victory for spiritual triumph.

Both are heresy.

Both worship false gods.

Both place crowns on heads that have no right to wear them.

The Catholic Church stands athwart both corruptions and declares with two thousand years of unbroken witness: Christ did not come to sanctify nations. He came to save souls. He did not come to establish Christian America. He came to establish His Church. He did not come to make Caesar holy. He came to make saints out of sinners who live under Caesar's rule while pledging allegiance to a Kingdom not of this world.

This is not a comfortable truth. It satisfies neither the progressive who wants religion neutered nor the nationalist who wants religion weaponized. But comfortable lies have never been the Church's currency. We deal in hard truth, even when that truth costs us worldly power, political influence, or popular approval.

II. Patriotism or Nationalism: Words That Wound When Confused

The Catechism teaches plainly that patriotism is not optional for Catholics. It is a duty rooted in the Fourth Commandment's call to honor authority. Love of country follows from gratitude and belongs to the order of charity. We owe our homeland respect, service, and genuine affection for the land, people, and culture that formed us.

But patriotism and nationalism are not twins. They are not even distant cousins. They are opposing spirits wearing similar clothing.

Patriotism is love. Nationalism is pride. Patriotism says I love my home. Nationalism says my home is superior to yours and deserves dominion over yours. Patriotism flows from the heart. Nationalism flows from the fist. Patriotism can coexist with love of other nations. Nationalism requires their subjugation.

Pope Pius XI warned that love of country becomes grave injustice when debased to extreme nationalism, when we forget all people are brothers, when we deny other nations their equal right to life and prosperity, when we dissociate morality from practical affairs. The moment patriotism elevates the nation above God's law, it ceases being virtue and becomes idolatry.

Christian Nationalism takes this corruption further still. It claims not merely that a nation is great, but that a nation is chosen. It insists not that Christians should participate in government, but that government should enforce Christianity. It confuses temporal political victories with spiritual advancement. It makes the fatal error of believing that legislation can accomplish what only grace achieves.

The Catholic Church knows better. We have two thousand years of watching empires rise and fall. We have buried more nations than currently exist. We have seen every political system humanity can devise, and we have found them all wanting when placed on the throne meant only for Christ.

III. What Scripture Actually Says About Nations

Christian Nationalists love to proof text. They grab verses, rip them from context, and wave them like battle flags to justify positions Scripture never endorses. Let us be clear about what the Bible actually teaches regarding nations and God's relationship to them.

Yes, Israel was chosen. Uniquely, specially, historically chosen. But that election was temporary, preparatory, and fulfilled in Christ. God used Israel to bring forth the Messiah. Once the Messiah came, the purpose of the national election ended. The promises made to Abraham find their fulfillment not in any modern nation state, but in the Church, the Body of Christ, which transcends every earthly border and contains every tribe and tongue.

Paul declares in Galatians that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek. National distinction loses its salvific significance. God no longer works through one chosen nation but through one chosen people: those baptized into Christ's death and resurrection, regardless of their passport.

When Christ stood before Pilate and declared His Kingdom is not of this world, He was not being metaphorical. He was not engaging in political doublespeak. He was stating cosmic facts. His Kingdom operates on different principles, pursues different ends, and acknowledges a different king than any earthly realm. Those who try to blend Christ's Kingdom with earthly kingdoms do violence to both.

Consider what Jesus actually said about political power. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's. Note carefully: He did not say Caesar and God want the same things. He did not say Caesar serves God's purposes. He established a distinction, a separation, a clear line between earthly authority and divine authority. Caesar can demand taxes. He cannot demand souls. Caesar can govern bodies. He cannot govern consciences. Caesar rules by the sword. Christ rules by the Cross.

Romans 13 is the nationalist's favorite weapon. Paul says governing authorities are instituted by God, therefore we must obey them. True enough. But read the whole counsel of Scripture. When Peter and John were commanded to stop preaching Christ, they replied that they must obey God rather than men. When the three young men were commanded to worship Nebuchadnezzar's golden statue, they refused and accepted death. When Perpetua was told to sacrifice to Caesar, she chose martyrdom over compliance.

Authority is real. Authority is necessary. Authority comes from God. But authority is also conditional, limited, and subordinate to higher law. When earthly rulers command what God forbids or forbid what God commands, Christians obey God. Period. Full stop. No exceptions.

This is why Christian Nationalism is spiritually bankrupt. It makes an idol of the state and then baptizes that idol with Christian language. It confuses national interest with God's will. It makes political victory the measure of faithfulness rather than holiness, sacrifice, and love.

IV. The Church's Teaching on Authority

The Catechism is crystal clear. Those in authority are stewards of God's gifts. They derive their legitimacy from serving the common good and protecting human dignity. They are owed respect and obedience when they govern justly. But the moment authority violates natural law, tramples human rights, or commands evil, that authority forfeits its claim to Christian obedience.

No one can command what contradicts human dignity and natural law. Political authorities are obliged to respect fundamental rights. When they fail in this duty, Christians have not merely permission but obligation to resist.

The Church has never taught blind obedience to earthly power. She has taught critical obedience, reasoned submission, respect for legitimate authority coupled with clear eyed recognition that all earthly authority is penultimate. God alone sits on the ultimate throne. God alone deserves absolute allegiance. God alone gets the final word.

This is why Catholic teaching fits neither Left nor Right political categories. The Left wants the government to be god, dispensing rights, defining morality, shaping human nature through legislation and force. The Right wants to baptize the government, making it the enforcer of Christian virtue, the strong arm of God's law on earth. Both positions misunderstand the proper relationship between Church and state.

The Church is not the state's chaplain. The Church is the state's conscience. We do not exist to bless what the government does. We exist to call the government to justice when it fails, to speak truth to power when power lies, to defend the weak when power crushes them.

V. America: Blessed But Not Baptized

Let us speak plainly about America. This nation was not founded as a Christian covenant. The Founders drew from natural law, Enlightenment philosophy, and yes, Christian moral principles filtered through Protestant and Deist lenses. But they did not establish a new Israel. They did not create a City on a Hill in the biblical sense. They crafted a republic based on human reason, ordered liberty, and the consent of the governed.

This does not make America evil. It makes America human. Temporal. Subject to judgment like every other nation that has ever existed.

America has real blessings. Religious liberty, though imperfect and under constant assault, remains stronger here than most places. Political participation is possible. Speech is freer than in most nations. These are goods, real goods, goods worth protecting.

But America also bears real sins. The enslavement of millions of human beings made in God's image. The near extermination and systematic oppression of indigenous peoples. The worship of Mammon disguised as prosperity. The export of sexual immorality and cultural poison around the globe. Wars fought for profit rather than justice. The murder of over sixty million children in the womb since 1973.

To love America rightly means acknowledging both. To love America as Catholics means refusing to lie about our history, excusing our sins, or pretending our nation holds a special place in God's economy of salvation that it does not hold.

Christian Nationalists cannot do this. Their entire project requires American exceptionalism, the belief that America is different, chosen, divinely protected. But Scripture knows no such category after Christ. Nations exist. God permits them. God uses them. But God does not marry Himself to them. He reserves that covenant for His Church.

VI. The MAGA Temptation and Political Idolatry

I condemn both parties. I reject both Democrats and Republicans as vessels of true Christian principle. My politics are Jesus Christ and His Church. Period.

But we must name the particular temptation facing American Christians in this moment, and that temptation wears a red hat.

The MAGA movement has baptized nationalism with Christian vocabulary while abandoning Christian virtue. It speaks of protecting Christianity while defending a man whose life exemplifies nearly every deadly sin. It claims to fight for the unborn while excusing adultery, celebrating mammon, and turning the cheek into a punchline rather than a commandment.

Watch what happens when nationalists gather. Flags on altars. Crosses mixed with campaign symbols. Worship songs rewritten with political lyrics. The conflation is complete. Christ becomes America's mascot rather than America's judge.

This is not new. Every empire has tried to domesticate the Faith, to make Christ serve Caesar rather than Caesar bowing before Christ. Rome did it. Constantinople did it. European monarchs did it. Now America attempts the same tired trick with fresh packaging.

The Church has seen this movie before. We know how it ends. Empires fall. Nations crumble. Powers fade. Only the Kingdom of God remains.

Christian Nationalism promises worldly victory but delivers spiritual bankruptcy. It promises to protect Christianity but produces Christians who cannot tell the difference between political loyalty and theological faithfulness. It promises strength but creates weakness of the soul.

VII. The Progressive Error: Neutered Faith and State Worship

But let us not imagine the Left offers refuge. Their error is equally damning, merely different in appearance.

Progressivism demands Christianity become purely private, a personal spiritual hobby with no public implications. Believe what you want, they say, but keep it out of politics, out of culture, out of the public square. Faith becomes a feeling to be managed rather than truth to be proclaimed.

This too is heresy.

Christianity is not a private religion. It is a public faith making public claims about public reality. Christ is Lord of all creation, not just the interior of human hearts. His Kingship extends over every sphere of human life, including politics, culture, economics, and social structures.

The progressive wants to replace God with government, making the state the ultimate arbor of justice, definer of rights, and source of salvation. But the state cannot save. The state cannot redeem. The state cannot transform human hearts or remake human nature. Those powers belong to grace alone.

When progressives achieve power, they do not create neutrality. They create a new religion with the state as god, collective feeling as revelation, and political correctness as law. Disagreement becomes heresy. Dissent becomes hate. Traditional Christianity becomes the enemy to be defeated rather than truth to be honored.

Catholics cannot accept this. We bow to no earthly power as ultimate. We acknowledge no human authority as absolute. We submit to no ideological system as salvific. Christ alone saves. Christ alone judges. Christ alone gets the final word.

VIII. Zionism and the Theft of Identity

Now we must address the elephant in the room that tramples both truth and justice: the Christian embrace of political Zionism.

Let us be absolutely clear. The Catholic Church is the New Israel. We are the people of God. We are the continuation and fulfillment of everything God began with Abraham. This is not replacement theology, it is fulfillment theology. God's promises to Israel find their yes in Christ and in Christ's Body, the Church.

The modern state of Israel, established in 1948, has no more theological significance than any other nation. It is a secular political entity founded through human decision, territorial conquest, and international agreement. It is not the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. It is not the restoration of biblical Israel. It is not uniquely chosen or protected by God.

Biblical Israel was a theocracy directly governed by God through prophets, priests, and kings. That arrangement ended in 70 AD when Jerusalem fell and the Temple was destroyed, exactly as Jesus prophesied. God's dwelling place shifted from a building in Jerusalem to hearts indwelt by the Holy Spirit. God's chosen people shifted from ethnic Israel to baptized believers from every nation.

Christian Zionism, particularly the Protestant dispensationalist variety that has infected American evangelicalism, is theological fiction. It reads Scripture through 19th century innovation rather than 2000 years of consistent Christian interpretation. It makes ethnicity salvific again, undoing Paul's entire argument that in Christ, racial and national distinctions lose their spiritual significance.

Catholics must reject Christian Zionism. We must reject the claim that modern Israel holds special theological status. We must reject the idea that American foreign policy should be dictated by misread prophecies. We must reject the notion that Jewish people today have a divine right to Palestinian land based on promises made to Abraham.

This rejection is not antisemitism. This is not hatred of Jewish people. This is theological clarity. We love Jewish people as we love all people. We pray for their conversion as we pray for all conversions. We acknowledge the horror of the Holocaust and the centuries of Christian antisemitism that preceded it. We stand against hatred in all its forms.

But we do not confuse love for Jewish people with theological endorsement of a secular nation state. We do not confuse opposition to unjust policies with hatred of a people. We do not confuse doctrinal clarity with bigotry.

The Church has always rejected Zionism as a theological project. The Vatican resisted recognizing Israel for decades. When diplomatic relations were finally established, they were based on political reality, not theological endorsement. The Church recognizes both Israel and Palestine. The Church advocates for a two state solution. The Church insists on equal moral standards for all parties.

We cannot bless injustice simply because it is committed by a nation some Christians wrongly believe is specially chosen. Justice does not bend based on who commits the violation. Wrong remains wrong regardless of the flag under which it is committed.

IX. Dual Citizenship: Heaven First, Always

Every Christian holds dual citizenship. We live in earthly nations while belonging to a heavenly Kingdom. These citizenships are not equal. They are not even close.

Our primary citizenship is heavenly. We are citizens of the Kingdom of God first, last, and always. Our earthly citizenship is temporary, conditional, and subordinate to our eternal allegiance to Christ the King.

This means when earthly citizenship demands what heavenly citizenship forbids, we choose heaven. When the state commands sin, we refuse. When the culture celebrates what Christ condemns, we dissent. When popular opinion conflicts with eternal truth, we stand with truth regardless of cost.

The martyrs demonstrate this principle with their blood. They loved their countries. But they loved Christ more. When forced to choose between offering incense to Caesar or facing lions, they chose lions. When told to deny Christ or die, they chose death. They understood that earthly life is temporary but eternal life is forever.

We are called to the same. Not to seek martyrdom foolishly, but to be willing to lose everything earthly rather than betray Christ. Lose your job rather than violate conscience. Lose political influence rather than compromise truth. Lose popularity rather than bend knee to false gods.

This is costly discipleship. This is the narrow way. This is the path Christ walked and the path He calls us to follow.

X. What Faithful Citizenship Actually Looks Like

So what does Catholic political engagement look like when we reject both nationalist idolatry and progressive false religion?

We vote. But we do not make elections salvific. We recognize that all human candidates are flawed and all human parties are compromised. We vote for the option that best protects human dignity and advances justice, while recognizing that no party fully embodies Catholic teaching.

We participate in civic life. We advocate for the unborn, the immigrant, the poor, the elderly, and all vulnerable populations. We speak the truth about marriage, sexuality, life, and family. We defend religious liberty while respecting genuine pluralism.

We resist injustice. When the government tramples the weak, we defend them. When power lies, we speak truth. When laws violate natural law, we oppose them through legal means and civil disobedience when necessary.

We refuse partisan loyalty. We are neither Republican nor Democrat. We are Catholic. Our principles do not fit neatly into either party's platform, and we refuse to pretend they do for the sake of political convenience.

We maintain prophetic distance. The Church is not the Republican Party at prayer or the Democratic Party with sacraments. The Church stands apart, speaking truth to all sides, comfortable with none, fully at home only in the Kingdom of God.

We work for the common good in whatever nation we inhabit. We serve, we contribute, we build, we create. We are good citizens of earthly nations while remembering we are better citizens of heaven.

We love our countries without lying for them. We acknowledge their goods. We confess their sins. We work for their improvement. But we never, ever make them ultimate.

XI. Tear Down the False Altars

Idolatry is not dead. It simply wears new masks.

In ancient times, people bowed before carved statues and offered incense to emperors. Today they pledge ultimate allegiance to nations, parties, ideologies, and leaders. The form changes but the sin remains.

Christ will not share His throne. Not with America. Not with any political movement. Not with any earthly power, no matter how noble its stated goals or Christian its vocabulary.

The test is simple. What do you love more? What would you sacrifice for? What gets your ultimate loyalty? If the answer is anything other than Christ and His Church, you worship an idol.

American Christians face this test daily now. Will you support injustice because your preferred party commits it? Will you excuse sin because your candidate embodies it? Will you compromise truth for political victory? Will you sacrifice moral clarity for worldly influence?

These are not hypothetical questions. Every election cycle forces them. Every political controversy surfaces them. Every cultural battle reveals them.

And the answer for Catholics must always be the same: Christ first. Church first. Kingdom first. Always.

Nations will pass. America will eventually fall, as Rome fell, as every empire in history has fallen. Political movements will fade. Parties will dissolve. Leaders will die and be forgotten.

But the Kingdom of God is eternal. The Church will outlast every earthly power. Christ's reign has no end.

So choose wisely where you place your ultimate hope. Choose wisely where you invest your deepest loyalty. Choose wisely which kingdom you truly serve.

Because on the last day, when every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, your flag will not save you. Your party will not speak for you. Your nation will not justify you. Only Christ will matter. Only His judgment will stand. Only His Kingdom will remain.

The throne room has one chair. Make sure Christ sits in it. In your heart. In your priorities. In your politics. In your patriotism.

Christ first, country second, always and forever. This is the only politics worthy of Catholics. This is the only patriotism that honors both God and neighbor. This is the only way forward that does not lead to the idolatry that damns nations and souls alike.

Choose Christ. Choose His Church. Choose His Kingdom. Let the empires fall where they may. We have a better citizenship, a better King, and a better country waiting. And that country needs no flag, requires no borders, and acknowledges only one Lord: Jesus Christ, King of Kings, ruler of all nations, judge of every human heart.

~ Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

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