Phil Johnson: Christian Nationalism vs Christian Nihilism

Phil Johnson was the longtime right-hand man of John MacArthur. Despite having defied lockdowns after shutting his church down for 3.5 months in 2020, MacArthur gained a lot of credibility on the topic of Christians and government. Previously, it was Phil Johnson who had been twisting Scripture to justify compliance. Nevertheless, prior to that event, the MacArthur camp was horrendous on Christian political engagement, even baptizing the arrest of believers who protested outside of abortion clinics in the late 80s and early 90s. Additionally, MacArthur famously thinks the American War of Independence was unjust.

It is for these reasons that I am not and have never been a MacArthur Bro. Phil Johnson’s topical sermon on Christian Nationalism is the latest Big Eva diatribe against Christians who want their government ordered towards godliness.

Poisoning The Well

Phil Johnson begins by using Corey Mahler as a standard-bearer of Christian Nationalism in order to paint the movement as too extreme for Christians. Then he attacks Joel Webbon as a more moderate extremist. The quotes cited against Webbon are of his expressing that the government should favor Christians and that non-Christians should not be able to serve, and that America is not Muslim, Hindu, or Jewish. Phil Johnson clutched his pearls tightly at the notion that Jews would not be treated as a master race under Christian Nationalism and instead treated as unassimilated pagans.

The G3 Playbook

Phil Johnson trotted out all the arguments that G3 did in his sermon. He attacks Christian Nationalism for a lack of definition. He attacks Christian Nationalism for being postmillennial. He attacks Christian Nationalism for not caring about making disciples. He attacks Christian Nationalists for believing that laws change people’s hearts. He even asserts Michael O’Fallon’s neo-integralist argument which is Catholic. All of his attacks are lies. All of them. In one hour, Phil Johnson speed-ran the losing arguments of 2023. He even did the “My Kingdom is not of this world” spiel.

Christian Nihilism

Phil Johnson’s main argument is that Christians achieving political power accomplishes nothing, both eternally and going so far as to suggest that it is a short delay against evil at best. Though clearly defeatist, Johnson hides behind eschatology to make what is ultimately a nihilistic argument.

Political nihilism asserted that existing social and political institutions are so worthless they should be destroyed. This has led to leftwing revolutions worldwide and was a movement in Russia preceding the Bolsheviks. What Phil Johnson asserts is Christian Nihilism, where the existing political institutions cannot help the church no matter if Chrsitians are in charge or not. Johnson’s Christian Nihilism would logically carry that Christians should not join the military because our battle is against principalities and powers or law enforcement because restraining evil does not change a person’s heart. 

Citing Cromwell and Kuyper, Phil Johnson asserts that Chrsitians achieving political power accomplishes nothing and that these men were both failures to govern in a Christian way. Regarding Cromwell, he attacks the Puritan for unspecified underhanded political maneuvering and using violence which is what government has the duty to do. His anti-Cromwell sentiment was nebulous. And opposing Kuyper, Phil Johnson pointed to Amsterdam today to assert that he was a failure.

But Phil Johnson takes his logic to the Bible as well to assert the futility of King Josiah because there was not actually revival in Josiah’s day, citing that the anger of the Lord still burned against Judah. Johnson asserts that this is because the revival was faked, neglecting the broader picture of the text which is that Josiah was too little, too late. The fall of Judah was already pronounced before Josiah was king, even the ultimate adversary.

Johnson’s sweeping assertion that Christians have never wielded power to the benefit of the church and the Great Commission ignores the entirety of church history. Christians had it much better under Constantine than Diocletian. Christians had it much better under Tsar Nicholas II than Lenin. And Christians had it much better under a Christian government than a Jewish or Muslim government. This is an obvious reading of history that only those with a persecution fetish pretend as though the church grows fastest under persecution, when revivals both in Scripture and perhaps church history are generally top-down.

Phil Johnson’s Christian Nihilism would render Christians entirely useless in the public square in any capacity other than evangelizing individuals. He sees little merit in the government’s role to uphold Romans 13 and restrain evils because this does not change hearts. He sees no value in the government promoting true religion because this does not change hearts.

Christians are called to sow good works where God has put them. The results might be out of our control, but on earth we labor. Our work has meaning because God rewards good works in Heaven. What we do on earth matters, and embracing nihilism is antithetical to the Dominion Mandate.

Christian Nationalists need not be threatened by Phil Johnson’s retarded argumentation. No amount of loser theology will ever baptize nihilism.