If we follow scripture as understood by Hazony, perhaps then we face his “either nation or empire” mentality. From other Christian perspectives, an appeal could be made to the varying levels of political organization available to polities over time, ranging from the city to the nation-state, to regional federations, and so on. Hazony’s account, however, allows no such appeal.

True patriotism is not about establishing the external borders of your love so much as the ordering of it. For the Christian, who has access to an unending source of love in God, no one ought to be excluded from this love—neither your neighbor, nor fellow countrymen, nor other peoples around the globe.

Given the state of contemporary discourse surrounding the nation, it’s no wonder so many young evangelicals are disillusioned with it. What we need is a return to a political theology that rejects this false dichotomy, seeking to recover the practical role of temporal political institutions in light of the eternal.

An incarnational nationhood deepens and overcomes the weaknesses of both the nation-as-idea and nation-as-ethnicity visions.

The nation-state emerged in Western Europe out of the Wars of Religion as a tool of the Protestant movements.

The very idea of the American nation-state seems to be losing its importance. In its stead, Americans have unfortunately moved toward cosmopolitanism and—for millennials especially—identity politics.

Should Christians promote nation-states in all places at all times? No.

There seems to be something of a movement to revive the “virtue of nationalism” today, both in America and—with Brexit the apparent battle flag—the rest of the world. This is a mistake.

Christianity’s political theology tips its hand at Christmastide. What’s in the cards for world order? Tidings of a coming “Desire of the Nations.” Songs of how “He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love.” Promises of “peace on earth.” Juxtapose all this with our time, when trumpeting “America first” sounds to some like jingoist nationalism and to others like the return of national sovereignty.