The Flag Is Not the Cross

Why Christian nationalism is a heresy, and what real faithfulness looks like today.

In late August of 410, Rome, the so-called eternal city, was sacked. For three days smoke and fire rose over its streets. Homes were looted, churches profaned, and public buildings destroyed. To those who watched, it was as if the sun itself had gone dark.

Christians felt the shock as deeply as their pagan neighbours. Many had come to imagine Rome as providence made visible—an empire chosen to carry the Gospel and hold the world’s chaos at bay. If Rome could fall, what hope was left? Jerome, writing in grief from Bethlehem, gave voice to that despair: “If Rome can perish, what can be safe?”

But Augustine thought differently. In a letter to a friend, he wrote that only in the Heavenly Jerusalem could Christians be “not passers-by, not resident aliens, but full citizens.” This line of his thought flowered fully in his The City of God, in which he reminded his readers that, like every nation, Rome was a city built on pride and ambition, destined to pass away. The city of man, he wrote, is formed by the love of self, even to the contempt of God. But the City of God is formed by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The two mingle in history, but they aren’t the same.

That was Augustine’s correction to Jerome’s despair: no empire, no nation, however mighty, is God’s chosen vessel of righteousness. Rome fell. Every nation will. Only God’s City is truly eternal.

The New Confusion

In the heart of London, over a hundred thousand protesters recently gathered under the banner of Tommy Robinson. Crosses were hoisted, flags waved, and from the crowd rose a cry about “Christian values” under threat. But this wasn’t some “quiet revival” of Christian faith. It was grievance dressed up as piety. The crosses didn’t point to Calvary so much as to borders, and those who cross them.

Across the Atlantic, the pattern is familiar. On 6 January, protesters stormed the Capitol beneath banners declaring Jesus Saves. More recently, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, has been cast not just as an attack on a man but on America’s supposed “Christian identity.” His funeral mingled calls for forgiveness with speeches that blurred faith and national glory. Vice President J.D. Vance put it plainly: “For Charlie, we must remember that he is a hero to the United States of America and he is a martyr for the Christian faith.” In such moments, loyalty to Christ and loyalty to the nation are pressed so tightly together they become indistinguishable.

Such language isn’t unique to the Anglo-American setting. Across Europe, leaders drape their politics in Christian speech—invoking national heritage, sanctifying national borders, and blessing suspicion of outsiders. From Washington to Warsaw, Milan to Madrid, Christian language and symbols are being conscripted into the service of nationalism. But the flag isn’t the cross, and it never has been.

What Christian Nationalism Is

Christian nationalism begins with an old and dangerous confusion that borrows God’s name for its own ends, imbuing law, rhetoric, and political power with the aura of providence in order to vie for power. The “Christian values” it seeks to impose rarely come from the Gospel; more often they’re scraps of national myth, rekindled by anger masquerading as piety. Even when Scripture is cited, it’s filtered through cultural or denominational lenses, shrinking the mystery of God into a checklist of political positions—as though faith could be measured by the ballot rather than by love.

To see this clearly is to be drawn back to the Messiah who was offered the sword but wouldn’t take it, worldly dominion but refused it, who chose instead the hard wood of the cross and the sharp sting of nails. In Jesus’ refusal we begin to glimpse what it means to belong to him, and why no nation can finally be his “shining city on a hill.”

The Messiah Who Refused the Sword

The Gospel cuts against the grain of worldly glory. In the first century, Messiah meant something clear and concrete: a Davidic king who would free Israel from Gentile rule through the strength of arms. The people wanted a strong leader who would summon an army to cast out Gentile Rome. “Make Israel Great Again,” might have been their slogan. It was Satan who offered Jesus that chance: “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”

But Jesus refused. He defined his kingship in terms of service and sacrifice: “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Again and again, he warned that violent rebellion would end in ruin. As he drew near Jerusalem he wept over it: “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!” He saw what was coming—the siege, the fire, the stones of the Temple torn down.

In Gethsemane, when Peter struck with a sword, Jesus stopped him: “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” And before Pilate, he said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight… But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” The cross, as Paul later insists, is the scandal at the heart of the Gospel. It leaves no place for kingdoms built on coercion, pride, or power.

The Sojourning Church

Paul carried this same vision to the fragile churches scattered through the empire. They had every reason to grasp angrily for power—they were mocked, marginalised, and sometimes persecuted. Yet Paul offered them nothing other than a share in Christ’s sufferings, reminding them that their true citizenship lay elsewhere: “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

They lived as outposts of the kingdom—rooted in towns and villages, yet untethered from the idolatries of Rome. Allegiance was uncompromising: every knee was to bow at the name of Jesus, not the emperor. Within this new community—later called “a holy nation” by Peter—every other identity was secondary: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28–29).

Revelation reinforces this: Christians are always at home and out of place. Rome is Babylon, a pattern of every empire that turns wealth, force, and dominion into gods. The vocation of the faithful is endurance and worship. One side is dazzled by the splendour of empire; the other follows the Lamb, loving “not their lives even unto death.”

A century later, the Letter to Diognetus echoed the same vision:

“[Christians] dwell in their own countries, but only as migrants. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers.”

Christians paid taxes, obeyed laws, and loved their neighbours, yet they wouldn’t bow to the gods of the nation. Always at home and always out of place, they were a peculiar people, defined not by tribe, tongue, or nation, but by their Lord.

A Faith That Defies Our Categories

C.S. Lewis once wrote that the New Testament gives:

“a pretty clear hint of what a fully Christian society would be like… a Christian society would be what we now call Leftist… If there were such a society in existence and you or I visited it, I think we should come away with a curious impression. We should feel that its economic life was very socialistic and, in that sense, ‘advanced,’ but that its family life and its code of manners were rather old fashioned.”

In other words, it would be something none of us would find entirely agreeable, because it would cut across every party line, frustrating all our neat divisions.

Like Aslan, the Gospel isn’t tame. It refuses to be caged in our platforms or programmes. It slips the nets of our schemes. It asks of us what we’d rather not give, and offers us what we scarcely know how to receive.

But Christian nationalism, like every heresy, seizes a fragment of the truth and mistakes it for the whole. It speaks loudly of “Christian heritage,” yet forgets the command to love the stranger and even the enemy. It promises salvation through politics: elect the right leaders, guard the right borders, pass the right laws, and all will be well. But the Gospel tells us something harder, stranger, more beautiful: salvation comes only from the crucified and risen Christ. No flag, no law, no ballot box can do what he has already accomplished.

What Faithfulness Looks Like Now

So how do Christians live faithfully in an age when nationalism is on the rise, or when they themselves feel marginalised, denigrated, or under threat? First, disentangle faith from political identity. Love your country, serve your neighbours, vote your conscience—but never confuse any flag or cause with God’s kingdom. And if the world seems hostile, if you feel the weight of scorn or exclusion, then don’t respond in kind, but rather “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.”

Second, take the Christian vocation of peace seriously.

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honourable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ To the contrary, ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:14–21).

Finally, live with a hope that makes no space for anger or fear. Augustine reminds us that nations rise and fall, but the kingdom of God endures. Christians can, therefore, live with a lightness of heart, secure in their ultimate allegiance, even when threatened or belittled. Politics of fear, outrage, and grievance may dominate the moment, but they aren’t Christian. They can’t be. The Church is called not to wield the sword of empire, but to bear the cross of Jesus, to resist the idolatry of nationalism, and to proclaim a kingdom that can’t be corrupted or bought.

The challenge for us today is simple: will we stand firm in our allegiance to that scandalous cross—or trade it for the empty promise of a flag?