#10. Christian Nationalism: The Gospel In Enemy Mode

This topic will be covered in six parts. This is part 5. Check out

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

The Problem of Posture

“I don’t want to listen to them—I want them to listen to me!”

Her arms were crossed. Her pupils dilated. Frustration radiated from her entire posture. She was clearly not interested in what I had to say. She was in enemy mode.

I had been teaching a Zoom class on evangelism, and she didn’t like my point about listening to unbelievers. I had suggested that the best way to gain a hearing for the gospel was to truly listen first, to reflect back someone’s view so clearly and empathetically that they felt understood. Only then could the gospel be heard.

But she wasn’t interested in gaining a hearing. She was on a mission to fix the lost, not understand them. Why should she listen to someone who was clearly wrong? They needed to hear her, not the other way around.

I admired her passion to share Jesus with others, but I questioned the posture behind it—one of assumed superiority. Her attitude, though sincere, reeked more of arrogance than Christlike love.

And tragically, that posture has become far too common among Christians today.

Tim Keller’s Third Way and Renn’s Three Worlds

Much has been written about Tim Keller’s “third way” approach—a path that resists being boxed into categories of right and left, red and blue. Instead, it pursues a gospel-centered alternative that transcends political loyalties because the gospel itself refuses allegiance to any single ideology.

But something has changed.

Aaron Renn, in his widely circulated First Things article, “The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism,” outlines how the cultural perception of Christianity has shifted over the last three decades:

• Positive World (Pre-1994): Society at large retains a mostly positive view of Christianity. To be known as a good, churchgoing man remains part of being an upstanding citizen. Publicly being a Christian is a status-enhancer. Christian moral norms are the basic moral norms of society and violating them can bring negative consequences.

• Neutral World (1994–2014): Society takes a neutral stance toward Christianity. Christianity no longer has privileged status but is not disfavored. Being publicly known as a Christian has neither a positive nor a negative impact on one’s social status. Christianity is a valid option within a pluralistic public square. Christian moral norms retain some residual effect.

• Negative World (2014–Present): Society has come to have a negative view of Christianity. Being known as a Christian is a social negative, particularly in the elite domains of ­society. Christian morality is expressly repudiated and seen as a threat to the public good and the new public moral order. Subscribing to Christian moral views or violating the secular moral order brings negative consequences.1

Renn’s framework captures what I—and many others—have recognized for years: the cultural landscape has shifted dramatically, and the church has struggled to keep pace. Keller’s approach isn’t ineffective, but many Christians who once benefited from a positive or neutral cultural posture now find themselves facing an uphill battle. In many ways, the “negative world” is the world Keller already navigated in Manhattan—now the rest of the country is catching up. Too often, however, the response hasn’t been marked by humility or wisdom, but by combativeness. We’ve gone to war.

And in doing so, we’ve lost something far more valuable than a cultural argument—we’ve lost our public witness.

The Rise of Enemy Mode

Renn is pointing to how secular society has turned against Christianity. But perhaps more concerning is how Christians have responded—with our own form of negativity. Rather than turning the other cheek, we’ve taken up cultural arms.

We’re in enemy mode.

Enemy mode is a psychological and relational posture in which we stop viewing others as people and start seeing them as enemies.2 It distorts perception and disables compassion. It’s not just a feeling—it’s a neurological state.

Neurotheologian Jim Wilder and retired Brigadier General Ray Woolridge describe three types of enemy mode:

• Simple enemy mode: A low-level reaction—sarcasm, passive aggression, or subtle jabs.

• Stupid enemy mode: Blind rage—yelling, blaming, reacting without thinking.

• Smart (or intelligent) enemy mode: The most dangerous. Here, people plot, strategize, and justify unloving behavior in the name of a righteous cause.

Proverbs warns against this kind of posture:

• Proverbs 10:12 – “Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs.”

• Proverbs 14:17 – “A quick-tempered person does foolish things, and the one who devises evil schemes is hated.”

• Proverbs 15:18 – “A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict, but the one who is patient calms a quarrel.”

Enemy mode is dangerous in any form, but the most dangerous form is smart enemy mode.

The Danger of Enemy Mode

Enemy mode, in all its forms, produces what Wilder calls relational blindness—the inability to see or treat others as people made in the image of God.3 Political commentator Michael Wear calls this “othering.”4

Intelligent enemy mode is especially sinister. It masquerades as wisdom, strategy, or discernment—but it’s driven by the desire to win, not to love.

Wilder and Woolridge note that in this state, people believe:

• My gaining status improves God’s standing.

• Managing my image makes God look better.

• My control achieves what is good.

• Weakness makes goodness fail.

• The higher the human cost, the more noble the project.

• Winning achieves high moral purposes.

The brain is quite capable of operating without compassion in order to win. In fact, there is much in common between sociopathic, narcissistic, and intelligent enemy modes of thinking. During intelligent enemy mode, Christian and non-Christian leaders alike can use their ethical reasoning to justify their unethical tactics.”5

This is not the mind of Christ—it’s the mind of the flesh cloaked in religious garb.

Identity Wars and the Culture Crisis

This posture of hostility has found political expression in movements like Christian nationalism.

Michael Wear, writing about identity politics, notes how rival identity groups escalate one another.6 As minority groups assert their identities in the public square, majority groups—like Anglo-Protestants—feel threatened and dig in deeper.

When we are in enemy mode (which is often a result of perceived or real slight), we cannot reason ourselves back to love. Wilder and Woolridge, citing psychiatrist Jonathan Haidt’s research, note that Haidt,

“…concluded that moral values are not based on moral reasoning. Quite the opposite, ‘we reason to find the best possible reasons why somebody else ought to join us in our judgment.’”7

When we are in enemy mode, we have lost reason and the ability to love others the way that God calls us to.

What matters most today, it seems, is winning. And in our pursuit of victory, we’re often willing to do anything—dehumanize our opponents, manipulate emotions, deepen division, and stir up resentment just to get others on our side.

But this isn’t the way of Jesus. It’s a betrayal of the gospel itself.

Jesus didn’t call us to conquer our enemies—he called us to love them. To love our enemies is to seek their good, even at great personal cost. It means being willing to sacrifice, to surrender, and, if necessary, to suffer and die.

This kind of love demands a kind of dying.

Loving our enemies doesn’t mean we abandon truth. Far from it. We stand for truth. We speak out when we see injustice. We raise our voices because Jesus compels us to.

But how we stand matters just as much as what we stand for.

In the kingdom of God, truth is never divorced from love. And love always carries a cross.

Focusing on the “nationalism” part of Christian nationalism, Paul Miller shows just that,

“Nationalism and identity politics feed off one another, and both undermine true national unity. When nationalists advocate for their preferred ‘national’ identity, those who fall outside that identity are forced to close ranks and advocate for the interests of their identity group as a defensive measure. When Anglo-Protestants used their cultural and political dominance to entrench their power amid rising pluralism, ethnic and religious minorities understandably responded by advocating for their interests, centered around their identities. But as identities splinter and proliferate and various minority groups demand recognition, the majority feels threatened that their polity is disintegrating. That makes the majority even more keen to reaffirm their sense of identity as an antidote to the perceived fragmentation around them. In that way, the success of identity politics for minorities leads to Anglo-Protestants doubling down on their group identity and insisting all the more that their group should define the nation. As Fukuyama says, ‘The crisis of identity leads…to the search for a common identity that will rebind the individual to a social group and reestablish a clear moral horizon. This psychological fact lays the groundwork for nationalism.’ Nationalism is ‘based on an intense nostalgia for an imagined past of strong community in which the division and confusions of a pluralist modern society did not exist.’

In this way, the more each group advances their identity claims, the more the other feels threatened and responds in kind. Rival identity claims take the form of an arms race or a spiraling conflict. We call this clash of identities the culture war. The culture war in the United States stems from Americans’ felt need to seek validation and affirmation of their identities from the public square. Culture war is only possible when Americans look to their government to establish a cultural template for the nation but disagree about what that template should look like. Another way of putting it: culture war is the natural consequence of nationalism because people will inevitably fight over the definition of ‘nation,’ especially over who counts as a member of the nation.”8

In other words: enemy mode.

What Will Rescue Us?

How do we respond when our cultural alarm bells go off?

Do we double down on political power?

Do we retreat into bunkers or Benedict Options?

Do we try to engage?

These are valid questions—and ones I’ll explore in my next article.

But for now, we must understand this: we won’t get out of enemy mode through moral reasoning or better policies.

Wilder and Woolridge, citing Haidt, note,

“We do not escape enemy mode through moral thoughts. Moral thoughts do not regulate emotions—attachments do. Without significant attachments that produce right brain synchronicity, the left brain is likely to justify anything.”9

We need relational healing, not just intellectual retooling.

And that begins with Jesus.

This isn’t a shallow Sunday School answer. It’s a deep neurological, emotional, and spiritual reality. Our attachment to Jesus must override every other attachment—every identity, ideology, grievance, and tribe.

Because when we stay close to Him, we’re reminded that we were once enemies too—and He didn’t come to conquer us, but to die for us.

That’s the posture we need. Not one of war, but of sacrificial love.

Join me next week for the final installment on Christian nationalism as I examine how we can engage the world through the love of Christ—a love that refuses both compromise with cultural idolatries and the combative posture of enemy mode.