A Christian Perspective on Geopolitics and the Nations

Introduction

The "Soirées du 72" are lectures held throughout the year to offer a Christian perspective on a wide range of subjects: geopolitics, art, consumer society, Mozart, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer. That evening, one of the church's pastors takes the floor to offer a Christian perspective on geopolitics.

Before his theological studies, he studied political science with a specialization in international relations, partly in the United States and partly at Sciences Po. He does not present himself as an expert, and he warns that his perspective will be first of all pastoral, theological and above all ethical. How does the Christian faith shed light on the exercise of power in the world, and on what is just? And how can a Christian take a position on geopolitical issues?

Geopolitics, he reminds us, studies power rivalries over territories. States are the main actors, but not the only ones: economic and financial power, cultural or religious influence, ideological currents. We are therefore talking about power relations on a global scale. His talk unfolds in four movements: Christian universalism, Christian "relativism", the human kingdom and the kingdom of God, and then the hope of the nations.

Outline of the message

1. Christian universalism: one humanity

Christianity offers a universalist view of the world, in the philosophical and anthropological sense: humanity is one, and it shares what is essential. Before being a man or a woman, white or black, Jewish or Arab, a human being is human.
This view stands against the identity-based views that are gaining ground, on the left as well as on the right. "Wokeism," with its convergence of struggles among oppressed minorities, and nationalism, in which national identity overrides any human solidarity, are radically opposed but share the same emphasis on particular identities. The risk is a world cut up into communities that have little left in common and between which a power struggle takes hold.
Paradox: in France, those who defend universalism most vigorously, such as Élisabeth Badinter or Caroline Fourest, often associate it with militant secularism, even with atheism, because religion would divide. Yet this universalist view has its roots in the Bible.
From Genesis 1:26-28 on, God creates man in his image, male and female. The Bible never essentializes the differences between human beings. Paul says it again in Athens: God "made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth" (Acts 17:26).
At the heart of the faith lies the incarnation: Jesus is human even before being Jewish. And in Revelation 7:9-10, a great multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language stands before the throne. Humanity is one in creation and one in redemption.
This is not a disembodied universalism like its modern secular version, which asserts equality in rights and dignity without being able to justify it: "If God does not exist, what supreme authority can decree that humanity is one and equal?"
The Bible does not erase nations and cultures for all that. In Revelation, the crowd is united but keeps its nations and languages. Biblical universalism does not flatten differences, it goes beyond them.

2. Christian "relativism": no human cause is absolute

Universalism and relativism are two sides of the same coin. The Christian believes in the absolute, in God, in truth, but is called to be a relativist toward every national or international cause or ideology.
The human being was created limited and dependent on God, with eyes turned toward his Creator. By turning away from him, he wanted to become his own god. When we give absolute allegiance to our own causes, however beautiful they may be, the Bible calls it idolatry. Modern idols are no longer carved from stone, but they still replace the Creator with creation.
A Christian cannot say: "Whatever happens, I will always support what my country does." Being French-American, the pastor quotes the old slogan of the American right, "America, right or wrong." That amounts to saying: "I do not ask myself what is right." We make absolute something that cannot bear that weight and that, held as absolute, can become monstrous.
Principles are what can be absolute: love, justice, compassion. Their concrete application always remains complex and relative to circumstances.
Take the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the start of the war in Gaza: on social media, some first highlighted the situation of Gaza's civilians and the suffering and discrimination endured for decades by the Palestinian people, while others first highlighted the fate of the Israeli hostages, the condemnation of terrorism, of Hamas and of the massacres of October 7, and solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people. The same principle of justice was expressed in almost contradictory ways. Yet nothing prevented anyone from being moved by both. But algorithms leave less and less room for nuance, and "nuance is suspect."
Two possible discourses on the war between Russia and Ukraine, read one after the other, show the moral complexity of such situations: one denounces the moral bankruptcy of the West and holds that we are fighting the wrong battle by supporting Ukraine against Russia, the other defends liberal democracies and Ukrainian sovereignty against the Russian regime. The pastor feels closer to the second, but he stresses that many things are true in both.
Even the most just causes are not, in themselves, exclusively bearers of good. The fight against Nazism was just, and it had to be fought, but horrors were committed on that side too: torture, punitive bombings, war crimes, and some of the most ardent resistance fighters (not all) carried other murderous ideologies such as Stalinism.

3. A demanding commitment, not a comfortable "at the same time"

Objection: would this relativism not be demobilizing, a kind of permanent "at the same time" that ends in moral blindness? The pastor answers: let us mobilize with all our heart, but to defend absolute principles rather than particular causes.
Christians should be among those who say "I am opposed to torture" in all circumstances, in the name of human dignity, whoever practices it. He is thinking of American Christian voices, rather conservative and patriotic, who said no to torture in the name of their faith in the context of the fight against terrorism.
Christians should denounce war crimes with the same vigor, whichever side commits them, and denounce the economic exploitation of the weakest, even when it benefits us.
Even the enemy our country is fighting remains a human being with intrinsic dignity. This commitment is anything but easy: it regularly puts us at odds with our own side, in the age of echo chambers and dialogues of the deaf.
These principles come from somewhere. Grounding absolute ethical principles, such as human rights, without a Creator God seems impossible to him: to affirm them is already to recognize an authority that goes beyond the human being.

4. The kingdom of God, the only absolute cause

The only cause to which a Christian can give absolute allegiance is that of God himself, which the New Testament calls the kingdom of God: God restores his royal authority and intervenes in the world to reveal his majesty, his power and his justice.
The whole Bible can be read as God's reconquest of lost humanity: redemption. It culminates in Jesus Christ, who proclaims from the very beginning of his ministry: "The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand! Repent, and believe in the Good News" (Mark 1:15).
This kingdom is established neither by force nor by domination, but by a word that spreads, almost like a rumor, and that brings reconciliation with God. From a Christian point of view, this is the first stake in what happens in the world.
What makes the headlines is human power. It matters in the Bible, but it remains secondary. "Everything passes," while the kingdom of God remains.

5. Daniel 2: empires pass, the kingdom of God remains

Daniel interprets King Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Daniel 2:36-44): a head of gold, then kingdoms of silver, bronze, iron, and finally feet of iron mixed with clay. "After you," Daniel tells the king, words that rulers never like to hear.
These empires have their golden age, but they always end up collapsing. Then "the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed" (Daniel 2:44). Human power relations are always secondary before the authority of the Creator God. Psalm 2 and Isaiah 60 point in the same direction.
The parable of the mustard seed (Mark 4:30-32) says the same thing in another tone: the kingdom starts out very small, it does not look like the others, but it is the one that will have the last word.
Before Pilate, Jesus declares: "My Kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). This kingdom does not rest on force, and its servants do not fight for it. It is a matter of truth and speaks to the conscience.

6. An upside-down kingdom that overturns the powerful

The kingdom of God is, as it were, inverted in relation to human kingdoms: it denounces and subverts human power. A lesson Christians have struggled to learn over the course of history.
Already in the Old Testament, God tells Israel that he did not choose it because it was more numerous than the other peoples, but because he loves it (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). God is not impressed by human power.
Jesus is born into a humble family in Bethlehem. In the Magnificat, Mary sings: "He has put down princes from their thrones, and has exalted the lowly" (Luke 1:52). Jesus chooses his apostles from humble backgrounds rather than from the country's elite.
"But it shall not be so among you, but whoever wants to become great among you shall be your servant" (Mark 10:43). This is not a very motivating vision for those who thirst for power.
Paul preaches "Christ crucified": God chose the weak things of the world to put to shame the strong (1 Corinthians 1:22-29). In the logic of the kingdom, everything is turned upside down. God denounces the illusion of human power and shows his true power even in weakness.
No human initiative can adequately represent the kingdom of God. The real news, for a Christian, is what God is doing in the world to save human beings, without downplaying the real weight of events.

7. The hope of the nations

Should we conclude that nations do not matter? No. In the Bible, history is at once heavy with consequences and, in a certain way, light. God is not indifferent to the nations.
He chooses one nation to reveal himself to the world: God acts on a small scale with a view to the large scale. To Abraham he promises: "In you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). He does not say "the rest of the world," but "all the families," keeping the specificity of each.
The oracles against the nations show that God judges each people for its own faults. Jeremiah, accused of being pro-Babylonian because he called people not to resist Babylon, pronounces at the end of his book an oracle against Babylon itself (Jeremiah 50:29). Isaiah, after the oracles against Damascus, Ethiopia, Egypt, Babylon and Arabia (Isaiah 17 to 21), pronounces one against Jerusalem (Isaiah 22). God himself does not make national causes absolute, not even that of his own people.
In the New Testament, the role of nations is less emphasized, because the kingdom of God is inaugurated and the new covenant turns toward a transnational people: the Church.
The powers of our time seem unavoidable, and they carry real weight: people truly suffer, and choices commit generations. But history shows that all of this passes. "There is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
In the final picture, the nations bring to God the best they have: "Your gates will be open continually; they will not be shut day or night; that men may bring to you the wealth of the nations" (Isaiah 60:11). And in the new Jerusalem, "they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it" (Revelation 21:26). France will perhaps bring its cheeses, the pastor smiles, but also its art and its culture.
Patriotism, understood as attachment to one's country and solidarity with one's fellow citizens, can have its place in a Christian perspective. Nationalism, which raises the nation to an absolute, seems to him incompatible with an authentically Christian vision. The local church is also called to reflect this diversity.
Some will find this vision of pacified nations naive. The pastor sees in it, on the contrary, a hope engraved in our consciences, confirmed by efforts toward alliance, peace and international solidarity. The Bible gives it a foundation. A Christian perspective on geopolitics is therefore, despite the shadows of history, a perspective of hope.

Key takeaways

Humanity is one, in creation as in redemption. The Bible does not erase the nations, it goes beyond them.
Only the principles that come from God (justice, love, compassion, dignity) can be absolute. To make a human cause absolute, even a just one, is to make it an idol.
The Christian denounces evil with the same vigor whichever side it comes from, even when that puts him at odds with his own.
Empires pass, the kingdom of God remains. It is established not by force but by truth, and it overturns the powerful.
Patriotism has its place, nationalism does not. The promised future is one of pacified nations bringing their glory to God.

Personal application

Is there a cause, a country or a side to which you give an allegiance that you should reserve for God alone?
Are you shocked in the same way by the injustices committed by the side you support and by those of the side you like less?
How do social media and echo chambers shape the way you look at the news? How much room do you leave for nuance?
In the way you read the news, how much place do you give to what God is doing in the world to save and reconcile human beings?
Does your attachment to your country look more like a grateful patriotism or like a nationalism that places the nation above everything?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

What is "Christian relativism" in geopolitics?

The Christian believes in one absolute, God, but remains a relativist toward every national or international cause. Only the principles that come from the Creator (justice, love, compassion, human dignity) can be held as absolute. To make a human cause absolute, however beautiful, amounts to making it an idol.

Can a Christian be a patriot?

Yes. Patriotism, understood as attachment to one's country, to the best it has, and to solidarity with one's fellow citizens, can find its place in a Christian perspective. Nationalism, which raises the nation to an absolute, seems to him incompatible with the faith, because there is always an authority above the nations.

What does Daniel 2 teach us about the powers of the world?

Nebuchadnezzar's dream shows a succession of impressive empires that have their golden age and then collapse. At a moment in history, God raises up a kingdom of a different nature, which will never be destroyed. Human power relations therefore always remain secondary before the authority of the Creator God.