Introduction: Identity
Derek Poole

Comment: What's in a Name?
Janet Morris

From the Director
David Porter

End Game of the End Times
David Porter

We Will Not Have Home Rule
Alywn Thomson

The Lost Field
Tony Davidson

Divine Assumption
Alan Wilson

Walking the Tight Rope
William Storrar

Certificate in Biblical Peacebuilding
Lynda Gould

Liberal Evangelical Post-Unionism and ECONI
Esmond Birnie

O God Our Help in Ages Past
Christopher Catherwood

Transformation
Lynda Gould

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WALKING THE TIGHTROPE
"Don't walk the high wire of nationalism," concerned friends in England say to those of us in Scotland or Wales who speak of our distinct nationhood and our demo-cratic right to political self-determination. Look at Sarajevo, they add. It will be Edinburgh next!

Look at England, we are tempted to reply, and come to terms with the most successful and militant nationalism in the history of the Western world, now unmasked with the end of empire and the emergence of Europe. While even Scottish and Welsh nationalists speak with equanimity of pool-ing their sovereignty within the European Union, English nationalism betrays a 'Little Englander' mentality which the rest of us would find embar-rassing if it were not such a threat to the future of Britain.

For Christians, a balanced judgement on issues of nation and nationalism must come from a bibli-cal perspective. We must ask the question: How do the human communities we call nations look from the biblical perspective of a humanity made in the image of God?

Humanity was not created within certain given nations or races, as religious nationalists such as the Calvinist founders of apartheid or the German Christian movement under the Nazis have argued. Nations are the contingent products of human cul-ture, rising out of the muddy course of our rebel history. Although large sections of humankind now identify with and value a sense of nationhood, and virtually all human beings now live within some form of nation-state, this is the result of cir-cumstances, not the unfolding of some eternal or natural law.

Fallen Glory

Those communities called nations in the New Test-ament exist within the bounds of God's creation, providence and redemption, under his sovereignty. So, Paul can say: 'From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times for their existence and the boundaries of the places where they should live, so that they would search for God ...' (Acts 17.26f) His emphasis is on the theological conviction that all nations are made out of one humanity and we are utterly dependent on God.

In fact, they are called to seek him, 'though indeed he is not far from each one of us'. Few nations do so. Nationhood and nationalism throughout history bear the marks of human rebellion against God, though in this they are no different from any other form of human community, thought or action. All aspects of created reality and all human ideologies - including triumphant capitalism and liberal democ-racy - are distorted and marred by human sin.

The term 'nation' has been applied to a multi-tude of different kinds of human community, from the ethnic tribes and peoples of ancient times to the modern members and aspiring members of the United Nations. All alike are under divine judge-ment; but they also draw on significant themes in the original creation and the continuing mercy of God towards a humanity created in his image.

This is their true glory. It can be argued that nations and their cultures have been one of the richest expressions in a fallen world of the original and continuing 'cultural mandate' given in Genesis 1.28 and 2.15-25, and reaffirmed to Noah in Gen-esis 9. This mandate calls on the one human race to name and develop the rich diversity of God's one creation in cultivation and the sciences, and to cele-brate the riches of human companionship in cul-ture and the arts, in glad and peaceful obedience to God's authority.

Unity and Diversity

Thus, nations are not without significance in the ec-onomy of God. The nations of the Bible, the 'goyim' and 'ethne' of the Old and New Testaments, are constantly judged and contrasted with elect Israel and the true Church for their idolatry.1 The 'holy nation' of God's people is not to be like the sur-rounding pagan, gentile nations (Ex 19.6; 1Pet 2.9). And yet the elec-tion of Israel and the Church is for the blessing and salvation of the nations (Gen 18.18). There is a recognition too that pagan nations may be both the instrument of God's purposes and the object of his mercy.2

We also find in Isaiah 60 a universal vision of the nations streaming to Israel with their wealth, as an offering to worship the true and living God. In the Gospels, Jesus warms to those earnest Gentiles who put their faith in him and humbly accept that salvation comes from the Jews (Matt 8.5-13; Mk 7 24-30). The disciples are called to make disciples of all nations, and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost affirms cultural and linguistic diversity as people of many nations understand the message in their own tongue (Matt 28.19; Acts 2.6,11). And the Bible concludes with a vision of the cultural riches and identities of all nations entering the new Jerusalem, and the nations finding healing there (Rev 21.22 - 22.3).

The one new humanity in Christ is a community of unity in diversity, a holy nation made up of peo-ple of all nations who, in embracing their new iden-tity in Christ, retain their social and cultural identi-ties as Gentiles and lose only the oppressive, distort-ing effect of sin and their separation from God's covenant people (Eph 2f).

The Bible affirms both equality and difference. In both Testaments, God's people are called to wel-come the stranger and to show love (in Karl Barth's phrase) to all neighbours, near and distant. There is also a fundamental equality of all God's people in Christ (Gal 3.26-29). And yet that does not efface our identities as Jew or Greek.

Collective Faith

The fact that the nations themselves always walk a tightrope above the abyss of idolatry, and frequent-ly fall into sin, induces in many Christians an undis-criminating and sometimes irrational fear of nat-ionalism and national identity. Yet if we examine nations in the light of God's image in Christ, rather than in the shadow of certain kinds of idolatrous nationalism, we may begin to discern their place in the divine economy.

First, we must set nations within their contem-porary context and consider the related phenomen-on of nationalism. By nationalism, we mean those ideologies and movements which foster national consciousness and advocate the right of nations to self-determination. Many different nationalist ide-ologies and movements are found in all parts of the world today, some arguing for statehood as the natural right of nations while others offer utilitarian reasons for self-government on the grounds of its substantive benefits.

Nationalism and nationhood in all their diversi-ty will remain a major political force and social reality for the foreseeable future. Quoting a leading scholar, the sociologist David McCrone notes:

National identity is probably the most powerful force in the modern age 'to provide a strong com-munity of history and collective faith'.3

Imagined Communities

The historian Benedict Anderson has helpfully called nations 'imagined communities', in that they are constituted by shared images of identity (lin-guistic, cultural, religious, geographical, political or social) among people who may never meet or know one another face-to-face.4 There have been other ways of imagining social identity, such as the tribe, the empire or the 'universal' community of Christendom. A nation transcends horizontal soc-ial divisions such as class because it shares certain vertical images of a community with a common but limited membership and some measure of sover-eignty over its own affairs.

This use of the word 'image', with its biblical resonances, opens up the moral and theological ambiguity of nationhood and nationalism. The Christian must ask whether nations are one valid cultural expression of humanity created in God's image, and, therefore, if nationalism may be on occasion a legitimate defence of that identity. But we must also ask whether nationalism may not also, on occasion, become the idolatry of an abso-lute loyalty.

The biblical insight that 'nations' are an ancient historical phenomenon and yet not the original con-dition of the one human race has some significance for the world today. It is only in the course of rebel-lious human history, not in the creation, that the different tribes, peoples and nations of the earth emerge, with a dual theological meaning.5

After Babel, the nations become the bearers of divine judgement on sinful humanity, in its divisions and mutual incomprehensions. But the diversity of nations within history is also seen as restraining human evil or hubris on a global scale, and offering one historical context for humanity's rich cultural and linguistic diversity. Indeed, distinctive cultural, geographical and linguistic 'nations' are described as existing before Babel.6 The threat in the Genesis story comes not from the diverse nations of the earth but from the hubris of sinful humanity's design to build a world empire, speaking only one language, in rebellion against God.

Judgement and Justice

A Christian approach must hold in tension these two biblical insights, that the nations are both historical vehicles of divine restraint and judgement on human sin and also one historical medium of the continu-ing cultural mandate given by God to the one hu-man race.

In practice, this may mean arguing in one con-text that a xenophobic or imperialist nationalism, where one nation seeks to exclude or dominate other nations or ethnic communities, stands under God's judgement. It may equally well mean argu-ing in another context that a democratic, non-vio-lent nationalism may legitimately pursue its cause within a framework of law and a recognition of the equal rights of all people and nations.

Both responses are shaped by a common bibli-cal concern for justice, solidarity and subsidiarity. This is the basis for the fundamental moral and the-ological distinction between the 'ethnic cleansing' policies found in Bosnia and the non-ethnic, civic democratic aspirations of parties such as Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party.

Secondly, we must also distinguish different eras in the development of nations and nationalism, and their different attitudes to Christ. This histori-cal character of nationhood is explicit and affirmed in the Bible, where nations are seen to rise and fall within the flow of human history and God's sov-ereign purposes.

While many scholars link nationalism with the rise of modernity and the sovereign nation-state in the 18th century, pre-modern nationalism, articu-lating a developing sense of Christian nationhood, existed in Europe since at least as early as the ninth century. Pre-modern nationalism was bound up with the religious conflicts of medieval and post-Reformation Europe, and gave rise to the concept of the 'Christian nation' which has survived in the West into the 20th century.

It was the secular nationalism born out of the En-lightenment, German Romanticism and the French Revolution that declared the nation and the nation-state to be absolute and sovereign. This modern nationalism has often made this claim to sovereignty in defiance of God's ultimate claims.

The Dawn of Post-Nationalism

The end of the 20th century is seeing the emerg-ence of a 'post-modern nationalism', as regions and nations defined by cultural pluralism, a common civil society and citizenship rather than by ethnicity seek autonomy within larger political communities such as the European Union.

Post-modern nationalism pursues its goals on the basis of the (originally Christian) principle of subsidiarity, or shared sovereignty, rather than the modern, nationalist principle of the absolute sov-ereignty of the nation-state. The political dilemma of the late 20th century is that the nation-state is too large to satisfy people's sense of identity or their demand for autonomy at the local, regional or national levels while at the same time it is too small to tackle many economic, environmental and interna-tional issues. This has led to the rise of distinctive, new forms of post-nationalism.

As David McCrone has suggested, some forms of contemporary nationalism have moved from em-phasising ties of ethnicity or common descent, lan-guage, culture or even religion, to defining a nation in terms of territoriality, living and working together as citizens in a common area:

'This is a plea for new forms of self-determina-tion, of limited autonomy and self-managing comm-unities based on the rights of people to govern them-selves. Such plans are based on limited sovereignty in an interdependent world. The assault by nation-alists on traditional nation-states is a symptom of the decay of these political formations, as well as the search for new forms as yet unimagined....

The irony is that nationalism is probably the gravedigger of the conventional nation-state with its commitment to "a world of sovereign, self-rel-iant nation-states claiming the right to assert them-selves and pursue their essential national interests by taking recourse to force".

In its classical form, nationalism is pursuing precisely those political structures which are rapid-ly falling into disuse. As such, [it] is probably des-tined to consume its own offspring. In this sense, these are post-nationalist times.'7

This emerging post-nationalism, with its concern for responsible citizenship in an interdependent world, and autonomous communities pervaded by democratic accountability, may be compatible to some extent with Christian social doctrines of solid-arity, subsidiarity, justice and stewardship at local, regional and global levels in ways that a 19th century glorification of the sovereign nation-state or, at the end of this century, a resurgent xenophobic eth-nic nationalism manifestly are not.

To understand Scotland or Wales, for example, within the divine economy requires us to ask what kind of historical nations and nationalism we are addressing. Can the central role of the Welsh lan-guage and culture in Welsh nationhood or the nat-ional civil institutions in Scottish civil society be held together with a post-nationalist understand-ing of nationhood as an autonomous and inclusive democratic territorial society pursuing post-materi-alist values?

The policies of Plaid Cymru and the SNP and the concerns of cross-party constitutional reformers such as the Campaign for a Parliament for Wales and the Coalition for Scottish Democracy suggest to me that there is a serious courtship, if not yet a consummated marriage, between these two dim-ensions of Welsh and Scottish nationhood today. England, however, has still to do more than flirt with post-nationalism, although Charter 88 is serving as an influential match-maker in introducing the English to the attractions of constitutional reform and civic democracy.

The Image of God

Finally, we must consider nations in relation to both the image of God and God's mission to the world. In the Bible, God's image in humanity is not primarily perceived in terms of discrete qualities such as rationality or speech, conscience or will, but in terms of relationships. To be human is to be in a right and dependent relationship with the Creator, who is a triune community of holy love, and to be in right relationships with one's fellow creatures.

We are fundamentally 'persons-in-community'. It is within this social set of right relationships that we find our individual personhood and enjoy true humanity.8 Sin is the breaking and distorting of these relationships. In Jesus Christ, the one true im-age of the invisible God, our broken relationships are restored and our new humanity experienced as a gift of our gracious Father in heaven. But in God's mercy, by 'common grace', our humanity is sus-tained even in our sin and brokenness.

It is within the parameters of this set of relation-ships - created, sustained, judged and restored in Christ - that we use language, develop cultures, maintain patterns of government and form those frail historical shelters of community and identity that we call nations. Any nation must be judged by its faithfulness to the pattern of such relationships, which constitute our humanity in God's image.

The biblical vision of the coming reign of God affirms both the place of the nations in final judge-ment and the prospect that their cultural legacy for good may enter the new Jerusalem.9 No national-ism will survive its ambivalent role in this passing age, but it seems that the unity of the new humani-ty in Christ will not efface the frail national and ethnic identities within which humanity has so ex-pressed itself in its history. The Tree of Life is for the healing, not the elimination, of the nations.

A Proper Love

It is through a critical assessment of these three dim-ensions, biblical, historical and theological, within the divine economy that nations and nationalism must be judged. Too often, Christian responses have offered a qualified support for patriotism while dis-missing nationalism out of hand.

This is understandable in a world of genocidal ethnic conflicts, but undiscriminating. (It may also confuse nationalism with racism: they may be linked, but are not necessarily so.) In context, patri-otism may cloak national aggression while nation-alism may express a just defence of universal civic and democratic rights for particular communities within one world. Both are morally two-edged con-cepts. Imagined communities must serve and not deny the divine image in humanity

In what sense are nations worthy of our Chris-tian patriotism? Patriotism is the love shown in loyalty to a native or adopted country: as such, it must be examined in the light of that greater love that characterises Christian social ethics. No country can legitimately make an absolute moral claim on the loyalty of its people, Christian or otherwise. Individuals and nations alike are called to a greater love and an ultimate loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is identity in Christ and the gospel of the kingdom which offer hope and reconciliation in a divided world, not national identity and patriotism.

And yet Christians, and the one human race, live in the context of a range of social, cultural and polit-ical communities. That is an integral part of a God-given humanity as created social creatures. The gospel both judges and affirms the social context and cultural identity of human life within history, including the context of country and nationhood.

Patriotism may be a worthy disposition for Christians in their earthly citizenship within the wider loyalty and horizon of the heavenly city. It may also be a cloak for national or party self-inter-est, 'the last refuge of scoundrels' in Dr Johnson's memorable judgement.

The love Christians may show for their country must be discriminating. At its core, patriotism must be an affirmation of what is best in a country's history and life, including its cultural achievements, its struggles for greater justice in human affairs at home and abroad, and the expression of certain moral values in its public life and institutions.

The True Patriot

And yet, as Simone Weil argued with regard to France, at its core a true Christian patriotism does not ignore the failures, injustices and shameful epis-odes that mark the history and contemporary life of a nation, and must expose fully all that is evil and morally compromised in its identity.

Such honesty in no way diminishes a Christian love rooted in the Cross, which accepts the frailty and sinfulness of human nations within history while embracing them within the divine love in Jesus Christ. The measure of a nation's worth does not lie in some innate spirit or genius, as in the spu-rious claims of Romantic nationalism, but in its share in that human creativity and partial grasp of truth which remain always available to us even in the midst of our rebellion.

Each culture and country may express that cre-ativity and grasp of truth in its own distinctive ways, but no mere country is endowed with a mon-opoly of wisdom or possesses some unique destiny. Nor do nations escape the judgement and corrup-tion of human sin. It is the Church of Jesus Christ which is the herald of the coming kingdom of God, a community which draws its membership from every country and culture. Only from within the perspective of the kingdom can we exercise a true patriotism for provisional communities and cult-ures, which deserve only a penultimate loyalty and a conditional commitment.

Nor must patriotism be confused with an eth-nocentric or chauvinistic view of the world. The qualities and achievements that evoke a love for one's own country, however distinctive, should lead a true patriot to a respect and appreciation for other countries and cultures.

A false patriotism does not dare to expose itself to such realities. It is Christian patriots such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Simone Weil who show the honesty courage and sacrifice required for true love of God and nation in Christ.10

William Storrar - Professor of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Edinburgh. This article is printed by kind permission of 'Third Way' magazine - Tel: 0181 423 8494 or editor@thirdway.org.uk.

1 Psalm 106 is typical, especially verse 35 2 See Isaiah 44.28-45
3 D McCrone Understanding Scotland: The Sociology of a Stateless Nation (Routledge, 1992) p219, quoting Anthony Smith
4 B Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (verso, revised 2nd edn, 1991)
5 See W Storrar Scottish Identity A Christian Vision )Handsel Press, 1990), chs6-8 6 Genesis 10.31f
7 D McCrone, op cit, p219 (see also pp6-10, 197-221)
8 On the relational understanding of the image of God, see Ray Anderson's On Being Human: Essays in Theological Anthropology (Eerdmans, 1982), John ilall's Imaging Cod (Ecedmans, 1986) and David Cairns' The Image ofCodin Man (Collins, 1973)
9 Matthew 25.31-46; Isaiah 60, Revelation 21.22-22.3. This point is made by Richard Mouw in When the Kings Come Marching In: Isaiah and the New Jerusalem (Eerdmans, 1983)
10 See Keith W Clements, A Patriotism for Today: Love of Country in Dialogue with the Witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Simone Weil, The Need for Roots