A brief exchange between a Christian believer arguing theologically against nationalism and I: > I mean Christ's demand that you treat blood enemies (in the parable, this is the Samaritans) like yourself, which precludes any notions of ethnonationalism I disagree completely, and this assertion would condemn virtually every functional Christian nation in history. The Church with the most valid claim to apostolic succession, the Orthodox Church, is siloed into national autocephalies. I am not Orthodox and think Orthodox has its own problems, but this idea that Christianity precludes any kind of ethnonationalism is not only an ahistorical modernism that rejects the vast majority of Christian history, but once again rejects a significant, though smaller and more historically rooted swath of present day Christians. I also largely think it is a theological fiction created by Catholics and scandicucks that are so opposed to loving their neighbor that they would rather pretend they are St. Philip the Evangelist (who happened to incidentally baptize all of two Ethiopians in his neighborhood) by overrunning his countrymen and pimping his daughter to hordes of tribalist muds and Moslems. It's an incredibly destructive and anti-Christian idea. Disciple to all ye nations means sending missionaries to them and sharing the good news, not importing whole digit chunks of their populations. And, as a prerequisite, requires there to be nations in the first place, which at the time the verse was put to text was virtually synonymous with ethnicity. The declaration of Christianity as a corrosive solvent that is designed to erode national unity and boundaries is the most disgusting and abhorrent idea that I could imagine. I would never associate the glory and love of Jesus Christ with such an idea. I am not considering any quotes of Christ to be theological fiction, I am considering your proposed interpretation of them to be so. > What's to interpret? Jesus says love your neighbor as you love yourself. When asked to clarify who is our neighbor, he gives a contemporary blood enemy of Israel as an answer. How does this preclude nationalism? He doesn't say to reject your nationhood. You can love foreign people without importing them. You can have love for your enemies while still accepting they are foreign and hostile to you -- and in fact it would be meaningless to have love for them if you didn't. I also think your characterization as Samaritans as blood enemies is not true. They were and are a kooky and not very well respected sect full of schemers of low character, but Pharisees weren't going around mass murdering them nor vice versa. In fact it was only non-Jewish empires that later did so like Rome and Byzantium (or prior, the Greeks), and not at the behest of the Jews like their murder of Christ. They descended from the Israelites just like Talmud readers, and Jews even today encourage their presence in Israel and consider them valid Israelis, unlike those ethnic Jews that profess Christ. They're more like somebody's idiot disappointment of a drug addicted cousin living in a trailer park than a blood enemy. Imagine your tweaker cousin went to one of those Pentecostal Christian rock concerts for mass every Sunday for mass and hit on teen girls there. That's how they thought of their faith. They are also not foreign to the area. Samaritans had been there forever, they were coethnics but of a differing sect. The example of a neighbor he gives is one that has always been an immediately adjacent physical neighbor. They are in fact still present in Zionist state today! They never left the MENA region! They are the most Israelite by blood of all present-day Jewish sects, due to continuing proximity and a lack of non-Semitic genetic admixtures! So how can they be a blood enemy of the Israelites? The idea that Samaritans were cited as a neighbor means I can't have nationalism seems patently absurd! It's a complete logical fallacy that does not follow from the example, and I believe you are just parroting the fallacious reasoning of your church elders. Because it is impossible to come to this narrative simply by reading the text and examining the history. So it has to be an intentional justification of mass migration by the chamber of commerce, or white genocide at the hands of the chosen people.