Brandon Holthaus is the pastor of Rock Harbor Church in Bakersfield, California, a very dispensational church. In a recent sermon, Brandon Holthaus attacked Eric Metaxes, taking aim at Christian Nationalism in a deceitful “prophetic update” he gave to his church. The church has about 33500 subs on YouTube.
What is ironic is that Rock Harbor Church is a theological mess whereby its own faith statement resembles the Baptist Faith and Message with dispensational premillennialism superimposed on top of it. Similar to the BFM, their faith statement reads:
 Every Christian should seek to bring industry, government, and society as a whole under the sway of the principles of righteousness, truth, and brotherly love. In order to promote these ends Christians should be ready to endeavor, always being careful to act in the spirit of love without compromising their loyalty to Christ and His truth. The Christian must also use wisdom in who and what they align themselves with on common cause issues. The Scriptures do not promote social justice, Marxism, Communism or Fascism since these socio/politico/economic theories are not compatible with the Scriptures.
This section seems quite compatible with Christian Nationalism; however, this section is followed up by a celebration of civil polytheism.
The state has no right to impose penalties for religious opinions of any kind.Â
This contradicts their section on the Christian and society which advocates Christians bring the government to righteous rule which will inevitably persecute false religious practices such as sacrifices, bodily mutilations, and even holding office as America once did.
It’s also worth noting the false teaching of the faith statement using Romans 15 to give money to “Jewish believers.”
Furthermore, according to the apostle Paul, Gentile believers are required to support Jewish believers (Romans 15:25-27) since Gentiles have become partakers of Jewish spiritual blessings. According to Paul, the Gentile believers have become indebted to the Jews, especially Jewish believers. The way of fulfilling or paying off their indebtedness is by sharing their material things with Jewish believers. As Gentiles have become partakers in their spiritual things, they are now to fulfill their indebtedness by giving in a material way to Jewish believers.
It’s unclear in this section whether these “Jewish believers” are Christians or pagans, especially as the section on church seems to allude to a Dual Covenant theology whereby believers “while sharing spiritual blessings with Israel of the Jewish covenants, it neither fulfills them nor has taken possession of them from Israel.”
Against Christian Nationalism
Holthaus’s attack against Christian Nationalism is all over the place. On one hand, he laments the “soft persecution” of Christians drawing Holocaust comparisons, on the other he abhors the idea of Christian Nationalism which would prevent Christians from the “ghettos” of “15-minute cities.”
Moreover, he accuses Christian Nationalism of embracing Replacement Theology from the strawman premise of America having a covenant with God. Yet in the end, he names Paula White as the source of Christian Nationalism. Paula White is a notorious Zionist. Ironically, he was right that many Christian Nationalists deny the significance of Modern Israel, but he fails to name or engage them and their arguments.
Lastly, he claims that Christian Nationalists place the fate of the church in political elections; however, Holthaus is far more preoccupied with the 2024 election and how Christian Nationalism will be used against Donald Trump.
The anti-Christian Nationalists are not sending their best, but it was interesting to see how a dispensationalist closer to the Jack Hibbs stream would attack Christian Nationalism.
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