Christ Is Not Your Flag

The Rise of Christian Nationalism

I am ashamed to share this space with Nationalists that call themselves Christian. Those of you who happily spread hatred and fear amongst fellow war minded people within the echo chamber. Those of you who call immigrants invaders. Those of you that worship Stalin and Hitler.
Let me start by spelling it out plainly for those of you who wish to wield Christ like a weapon:
You cannot be both a Nationalist and a Christian. You have embarrassed me so deeply that I have decided to begin an essay tonight at 2 am to defend some portion of Christian honor amongst peers.

Mercy beyond borders.

Something is rotting beneath the banner of modern Christianity.

Everywhere I look online, I see men waving the Cross like a sword, as if Christ were their general in some culture war. I see the language of the Gospel twisted into national slogans, the language of repentance replaced with the language of power. There are people who speak of immigrants as “invaders,” who praise Stalin’s iron hand, who talk about “purity” and “strength” while sneering at the stranger and the poor. They call it patriotism, but it is blasphemy dressed in red, white, and black.

Let’s be clear: Christ did not die for your flag. He died for your enemy, for the one you hate, for the person you fear. He died for the foreigner, the refugee, the sinner, the stranger—and for you, who forgets this.

This new nationalism hiding under a Christian mask is not faith. It is idolatry. When someone says, “country before God,” they are saying exactly what the tempter said to Christ: “All these kingdoms will I give thee if thou wilt bow down and worship me.” And Christ refused.

When you call a refugee an invader, you are not defending your home—you are denying the Incarnation itself. The Son of God became a man from a foreign land, rejected by His own, hunted as a child, wandering without a place to lay His head. How dare we mock His likeness in others?

Those who exalt Stalin, Hitler, or any tyrant, in the same breath as the saints of the Church reveal what they truly worship: not God, but domination. Not the Kingdom of Heaven, but the kingdoms of men.

The Orthodox Church has endured empires rise and fall. Rome, Byzantium, the Tsars, the Soviets—all dust. Only the Kingdom of God remains. When men take that Kingdom and paint their flags with its blood, they repeat the sin of every age: trying to own what is holy. They weaponize what was meant to heal. They take the Gospel—the news that death has been defeated—and turn it into a slogan for human supremacy. That is not just heresy; it is betrayal.

Christ said, “Put away your sword.” He said, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” He said, “Love your enemies.” If those words make you uncomfortable, good. They are supposed to.

It’s time to draw the line between faith and fanaticism. You can love your country without worshiping it. You can protect your home without hating the stranger. You can be a man of strength and still weep for the wounded. To be Christian is not to rule—it is to serve. To be Orthodox is not to harden—it is to suffer with. To be faithful is not to win—it is to be made holy.

If you raise your flag higher than your cross, you’ve already changed sides.

I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.

But I don’t want to end in anger. The Church doesn’t need more rage. What it needs is truth — and hearts softened enough to receive it.

The real Christian life isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t trend. It doesn’t win wars or elections. It kneels beside the suffering and says, “I am with you.” It stays when the cameras leave. It forgives when forgiveness feels impossible. It builds peace brick by brick in a world addicted to fire.

The saints were not conquerors. They were servants. They fed the poor, washed the feet of beggars, prayed for their persecutors, and sometimes died at the hands of the very people they tried to save. That’s not weakness. That’s divine strength — the kind that terrifies tyrants and humbles kings.

When Christ hung on the Cross, He wasn’t proving His might. He was revealing what love really costs. If we forget that, we lose everything.

It’s easy to confuse holiness with victory, to think that defending God means winning arguments or reclaiming lost lands. But the Kingdom of Heaven isn’t a border you can defend. It’s a way of being — mercy embodied, truth spoken without cruelty, justice tempered with compassion.

The world is full of people shouting about what they hate. Maybe it’s time Christians became known again for what they love. Love that builds homes for refugees. Love that prays for the enemy. Love that feeds the hungry without asking where they’re from. Love that refuses to bend its knee to the idols of nation, race, or power.

If the Church is to survive this century, it won’t be through political strength or social dominance. It will be through repentance — through people who remember that Christ’s crown was made of thorns, not gold.

So let the loud ones rage about invasions and purity. Let them fly their banners and call it faith. I will kneel where the wounded are. I will stand beside the stranger. I will believe that love still has a future — because Christ does.

Love and compassion for all. Not just those you find easy to love.

The Church does not need more warriors.
It needs witnesses.

Not men who shout about saving civilization,
but men who quietly save their neighbor.

Not soldiers of ideology,
but servants of mercy.

Because in the end, every empire falls,
and every flag turns to dust.
Only love endures — the kind that bleeds,
the kind that forgives,
the kind that still whispers from the Cross:
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

That is the banner we were meant to carry.