Redeeming Politics: An Appraisal of the Wesleyan Political Theology of Theodore R. Weber in a Time of Christian Nationalism

Abstract

Theodore R. Weber, founding member and past president of the Society of Christian Ethics, developed a distinctive political theology based on John Wesley’s soteriology. Weber argued that a fully developed concept of the political image of God, which humans reflect in their social and institutional contexts, would move beyond the individualistic focus of Wesley’s ordo salutis, allowing Wesleyans a shared language to talk about political institutions and social ethics distinct from the order of preservation and order of creation approaches. Weber’s understanding of political sanctification, in which individuals and institutions contribute to God’s redemptive work of reconciliation, is a unique contribution to political theology. Weber argued that politics is part of discipleship but cautioned against attempts to Christianize society. His Wesleyan political theology provides parameters for faithful political action in refuting and working against a Christian Nationalist agenda in the United States of America. This article offers an appraisal of Weber’s Wesleyan political theology through an extensive review of his writings on the topic. The method engages in close textual readings of Weber’s publications, providing a clear synthesis of the major themes in his scholarly writings spanning over four decades. The purpose is to provide a cogent overview of Weber’s perspective and approach so that his legacy of writings may continue to inform new scholarly audiences.

1. Introduction

Theodore R. Weber (1928–2023), Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics at Emory University and founding member and former president of the Society of Christian Ethics, explored the relation between politics and theology throughout his career. A lifelong Methodist, Weber began preaching at the age of 16 and served as a pastor prior to his graduate work at Yale University with H. Richard Niebuhr. For fifty years, he wrote about the ethics of war and peace, revolution and liberation, and international security, examining themes such as power, authority, rights, truth, and reconciliation. His reflections on national and international politics were shaped by the exigencies of Cold War and post-Cold War realities, as well as his experiences working for racial integration in Atlanta and at Emory University during the 1960s. He continued to teach and participate in adult Christian education in his United Methodist congregation well after retirement. Invariably, he brought a deeply theological perspective to his analyses, challenging his students, readers, and colleagues to identify what is Christian about Christian ethics—and then to live it out.

When trying to identify what is Christian about Christian ethics from a Wesley perspective, however, Weber found Methodism impoverished, since the tradition lacks a distinct political language. During the 1990s and into retirement, he sought to develop a political theology rooted in but not limited by the theology and politics of John Wesley. His approach was unique, and his book, Politics in the Order of Salvation: Transforming Wesleyan Political Ethics, remains the definitive treatment of Wesley’s political theology and ethics (Weber 2001). At the time of his death in 2023, he was still developing the implications of this research, actively working on an unpublished book manuscript titled “The Political Image of God and Wesleyan Theology” (Weber n.d.; personal communication with the author).

This article offers an appraisal of Weber’s Wesleyan political theology through an extensive review of his writings on the topic. The method engages in close textual readings of Weber’s publications, providing a clear synthesis of the major themes in his scholarly writings spanning over four decades. Thus, this article hews closely to Weber’s writings, presenting his thoughts in his own words whenever possible. The purpose is to provide a cogent overview of Weber’s perspective and approach so that his legacy of writings may continue to inform new scholarly audiences.

This article begins with the problem of deriving a political theology from John Wesley, whose political commitments were not shared by later generations of Methodists. The heart of this article presents Weber’s development of a distinctive Wesleyan understanding of humanity’s political nature, based on the full image of God, and God’s redemptive work through human institutions, expanding the ordo salutis beyond an individualistic purview. Weber’s understanding of God’s work of reconciliation yields a method of concrete transcendence for understanding the work of political institutions. Placing politics within the order of salvation may seem to exacerbate the problem of Christian nationalism, but Weber develops the concept of redeeming politics within a Wesleyan language of institutions, countering theologically unmoored attempts to appropriate Christianity for a nationalist project. The essay concludes by way of example, drawing on Weber’s Wesleyan political theology as a resource for faithful political action in refuting a Christian nationalist agenda in the United States of America.

2. Revisiting John Wesley’s Politics

Methodists inherited no common political language from their founder. John Wesley was a conservative Tory who supported the English monarchy and spoke against democracy. He viewed political authority as coming from God directly to the government and “denied a political role to the people” (Weber 2001, p. 32). In contrast to the staying power of his soteriology, Wesley’s politics proved inflexible; it was too historically and contextually situated to adapt to new political realities (Weber 2001, p. 23).

Methodists on both sides of the Atlantic broke with Wesley’s politics. Wesley’s political perspective was a non-starter to patriots in the American Revolution. American Methodists repudiated his monarchist politics almost immediately, severing their formal ties to Wesley at the same time the former colonies established their independence from the British crown. In England, Wesley’s politics resulted in a political posture of “passive obedience and nonresistance” among English Methodists after Wesley’s death in 1791: those who followed Wesley’s politics were “antirepublican, antidemocratic, and aggressively respectful of the social order” (Weber 2001, p. 20). British Methodists shed the “conservative and repressive character” of Wesley’s politics by the mid-nineteenth century; it was not an enduring posture (Weber 2001, pp. 19–20, 23). Having jettisoned Wesley’s politics, Methodists were left with no distinctive way of discussing government and other social institutions. In contrast, Lutherans have their “Two Kingdoms” theology; Roman Catholics have natural law; and Calvinists have their covenantal theology (Weber 2001, p. 25).

Later generations of Wesleyans experienced “a fundamental conflict” between Wesley’s political philosophy and the Wesleyan theology they embraced (Weber 2001, p. 26). According to Weber, Wesley’s politics contradicted his soteriology in two important ways:

“One is the concept of God. The God of Wesley’s politics is a hierarchical first person of the Trinity—above us, judging, dispensing, disposing. The God of the order of salvation, by contrast, reflects primarily the immanent second and third persons of the Trinity—God with us, not above us—sacrificing, sharing, participating, empowering. The second point is the contrasting roles of the people in politics and salvation. In politics, the people have no role, whereas salvation is for all the people. The differences are theological, not practical. In politics, divine authorization descends from above, electing those who are to rule, and excluding the rest. In the way of salvation, God elects the entire human race, and offers to equip each person for participation in the work of God. These are fundamental differences, requiring in both cases a transformation of the understanding of the relationship of God to politics, and therefore of the understanding of politics itself.”

(Weber 2001, p. 35)

The democratizing tendencies inherent to Wesley’s insistence on universal grace would not be constrained by his own political views to the contrary. Thus, Methodists adopted Lockean and other political philosophies that differed considerably from Wesleyan theological anthropology and its emphasis on original sin (Weber 2001, p. 27). Despite this history, Weber saw in Wesleyan theology sufficient resources to develop a political ethic and method, declaring “a Wesleyan political language is both necessary and possible” (Weber 2001, p. 27).

Weber sought not to reproduce Wesley’s politics but rather to construct a political language via “political exegesis of the grand themes of salvation” in the Wesleyan tradition (Weber 2001, p. 33). He proposed to offer an “evangelically derived politics,” showing how “Wesley’s doctrines of assurance, spiritual equality, and universal grace” yield “doctrines of universal suffrage, popular sovereignty, and representation” (Weber 2001, pp. 33–34). Weber intended this theological construct to enable Wesleyans to interpret “political reality and responsibility” from the standpoint of their own theological tradition and to address a comprehensive range of topics in social ethics: “political authority and obligation”; “the nature and purpose of state and government”; “rights and liberties”; “the mandates of justice”; and “the moral imperatives of peace and war” (Weber 2001, p. 37). Weber also claimed that such a social ethic would bolster confidence in “representative and democratic political institutions” even as it “will not require democracy as a theologically necessary or pertinent system” (Weber 2001, p. 37, original emphasis). He began this task by exploring the full image of God.

3. The Full Image of God in the Order of Salvation

Weber retrieved Wesley’s basic understanding of human nature and its end: humans are created in the threefold image of God—natural, moral, and political—and salvation entails recovery of the whole image of God (Weber 2001, pp. 28, 38). Based on John Wesley’s sermon “The New Birth,” Weber argued that the natural image provides humanity the capability of being in relationship with God, entailing “understanding, freedom of will, and various affections” (Weber 2001, p. 393, citing Wesley 1760, pp. 26–27). This capability sets humans apart from the rest of the created order (Weber 2001, p. 393, citing Wesley 1782).1 Through the political image, humans exercise the vocation of humanity: “benevolent and productive care of creation” (Weber 2001, p. 36). Furthermore, in his Notes on the Old Testament, Wesley asserted human self-governance as the quintessential expression of the political image: “his government of himself by the freedom of his will, has in it more of God’s image, than his government of the creatures” (Weber 2001, p. 403, original emphasis, citing Wesley 1765, p. 7). The moral image reflects God’s love through human obedience in relationship with God, recovery of which is holiness (Weber 2001, p. 394).

Through the Fall, the moral image is lost entirely because humanity is cut off from God: the relationship is severed and humans cannot but sin, except as empowered by grace.2 The natural image remains after the Fall but lacks the “capability of God,” rendering the will subject to misguided ends (Weber 2001, p. 394, citing Wesley 1782)—a teleological view consistent with Augustine. The political image also remains, but human dominion is expressed as exploitation rather than the responsible stewardship of creation (Weber 2001, pp. 395, 405). Self-interest replaces obedience to the will of God: “the political image of God is not lost, but it has become dysfunctional” (Weber 2001, p. 395). The political image is dependent on the restoration of the moral image for its “normative orientation”: “a benevolent and stewarding exercise of power based on loving consent” (Weber 2001, p. 414). Thus, Weber asserted that “the key to political understanding is the image of God in its fullness” (Weber 2001, p. 398). All three aspects of the image of God are necessary for right relationship and governance and the process of salvation/wholeness (Weber 2001, pp. 398, 414).

Wesley, however, did not develop the image of God in its fullness. Instead, he expended most of his evangelistic energies focusing on the recovery of the moral image, limiting the application of his theological perspective in the political realm. Weber explained the following:

“[Wesley’s] neglect of the political image blocked the integration of his politics and his understanding of the way of salvation. It hindered the formulation of a Wesleyan social ethic by focusing on an individualistic concept of Christian love largely incapable of dealing with questions of institution and power. It encouraged controversies over the meaning of Christian perfection and entire sanctification that often were sterile because their moral image concerns had no inherent or integral social and relational dimensions.”

(Weber 2001, pp. 36–37, original emphasis)

Weber noted that the political image is a corporate concept, restoration and renewal of which involves “the perfection of the whole of humankind in relation to the perfection of the whole of the remaining animate world” (Weber 2001, pp. 414–15, see also 418). In this sense, salvation is a process of all things becoming reconciled with God—a process that begins within history, includes political institutions among “all things,” and is culminated when God is “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28, NRSVUE; Weber 1995, p. 552). Thus, “God’s prevenient grace is diminished when confined to the order of salvation of individual persons” (Weber 2001, p. 412). A fully developed concept of the political image of God, which humans image in their social and institutional contexts, must go beyond the individualistic focus of Wesley’s ordo salutis.

If God’s work of creating, redeeming, and sustaining is not limited to the individual but encompasses all human life in its social fullness and, indeed, the entire cosmos, then political participation must find a place in the order of salvation. Weber attempted to recover “the unity of the divine image in humankind” in light of the Trinity, the order of salvation, and Wesley’s commitment to universal grace (Weber 2001, p. 411). For Weber, “the theological foundation of government is the Trinity in being and action”; governance is therefore defined in reference to the doctrine of God: “what God does in ordering, preserving, and developing the creation” (Weber 2001, p. 396, original emphasis). Humans can only understand the work of God rightly, however, because of the divine initiative to renew the fallen creation through “the work of God in Christ” (Weber 2001, p. 396). Political sanctification is a process of maturation in which humans individually and institutionally share responsibility for self, society, and creation through their vocation to image God in three persons (Weber 1995, p. 552).

Situating politics within the order of salvation allows for a transformational political ethic in which society can experience glimpses of God’s redemption through grace. Weber saw evidence of prevenient grace in the political development of humankind: “when emerging public consciousness discerns the purpose of government to be service to the members of the political community and not to their rulers”; the discovery of rights and the need to protect those rights; and “the necessity [of drawing] the people into the political process” (Weber 2001, p. 412). Through justifying grace, not only the moral image but also the natural and political images are restored, renewing humanity’s political vocation and shared identity (Weber 2001, p. 413). Sanctifying grace nurtures not only individuals on personal paths of holiness but also institutional developments such as “transforming power from predominance of force into predominance of consent”; moving from “the rhetoric of human rights … to their solid embodiment”; and full, responsible political participation (Weber 2001, p. 414). This participation gives meaning and concreteness to the concepts of love and justice in the lives of Christians: “Because grace is sanctifying, it develops the spirit of love and justice in relationships” (Weber 2007, p. 227). Thus, the Wesleyan idea of “going on to perfection” involves a “call[s] to political involvement” (Weber 2001, p. 418). However, Weber disavowed any possibility of achieving institutional- or societal-level Christian perfection: “there is no historical event of ‘entire sanctification’” (Weber 1995, p. 552; see also 1991, pp. 17 and 19). Weber expected to see political progress, based not on optimism in human potential but on faith in God’s plan for redemption.

4. Redeeming Politics

Weber critiqued Wesley’s politics through his soteriology, demanding coherency between his beliefs in God and his assumptions about political participation, authorization, and institutions. Wesley understood political institutions as “analogical instruments of divine action” and “elements of community” for the purposes of keeping the peace and protecting basic liberties (Weber 1995, p. 546). Weber noted, “This relationship of institution to community was fundamental to Wesley’s own thinking, and it must also be basic to any reformulation of a Wesleyan political theory” (Weber 1995, p. 546). However, Wesley’s understanding of institutions was historically and contextually bound, and he failed “to translate the commitment to liberty into a political ethic” (Weber 1995, p. 546). The task, as Weber understood it, involved creatively employing Wesley’s analogical method to transform his political theology.

A Wesleyan political theology, based on analogy with God, begins with God’s nature and action rather than the human condition. Thus, Wesley’s political logic does not fit neatly into order of creation or order of preservation approaches. Weber claimed that Wesley’s belief in original sin was too deep to countenance a political theology arising from the order of creation, such as those based on natural law (Weber 1995, p. 540). The order of preservation model comes closer to Wesley: “There is no doubt that Wesley thought of preservation and protection as the primary work of governments” (Weber 1995, p. 543). However, Weber denied “the simple linking of political institutions with original sin as their source” in Wesley’s thought, explaining that humanity’s fallen condition was not Wesley’s starting point for thinking about politics (Weber 1995, p. 543). Instead, for Wesley, “Normative political knowledge is derived analogically from the character and kind of God’s relating to the world” (Weber 1995, p. 544). Thus, politics is not a human-focused activity but an expression of divine governance. God’s work, then, becomes the model for human political relations: “Political institutions represent ways in which God organizes the fallen world to work with human power to serve God’s purposes” (Weber 1995, p. 544). Wesley’s mode of political theology “calls on political leaders and institutions to image the qualities and ways of God’s relating to the world” (Weber 1995, p. 545). This means, however, that “the theological understanding of political institutions can shift radically with a change in the understanding of God” (Weber 1995, p. 545). This potential shift is where Weber found traction within Wesley’s theology to challenge Wesley’s politics.

Weber found Wesley’s political analogies deficient in their depiction of God (Weber 1995, p. 546). Wesley understood political authority to be conferred top-down, from God to the King, and saw no political role for the people as such (Weber 2001, p. 32). Weber noted that these features of Wesley’s politics, derived from an exclusively hierarchical understanding of the first person of the Trinity, contradict his soteriology, which reflects the immanence of the second and third persons of the Trinity (Weber 1995, pp. 538, 548; 2001, p. 35). Weber’s reformulation begins by “read[ing] political reality from the standpoint of the saving work of God in Christ” (Weber 1995, p. 548). In the ordo salutis, “God elects the entire human race, and offers to equip each person for participation in the work of God” (Weber 2001, pp. 35, 399). Focusing on redemption, God’s offer of grace to all of humanity through Jesus Christ yields a radically democratic understanding of politics—“authority is given to the people as a whole, not directly to the rulers”—thus authorizing all persons to exercise political responsibility (Weber 1995, pp. 548, see also 538). This Weber understood to be the normative understanding of politics: “exercising shared responsibility for the governance of the created order” (Weber 1995, p. 551). In Weber’s reformulation, persons may exercise political responsibility directly or indirectly, by delegating that authority to leaders or developing political institutions, a view of political authorization consistent with Wesley’s support of the English constitution and Parliament (Weber 2001, pp. 400–2). In fact, Weber considered this aspect of his political reformulation more “authentically Wesleyan” than Wesley’s own political assertions (Weber 2001, p. 403).

Political institutions are included in God’s salvific work. Viewing politics through Wesley’s soteriology “draw[s] institutions as well as individual persons into the order of salvation, thereby making full political use of the Trinity” (Weber 1995, p. 545). Politics can be redeemed: “Jesus speaks to us and calls us politically, not just individually” (Weber 1995, p. 551, original emphasis). Because all of humankind images God through political responsibility for creation, Weber saw “shared responsibility [as] the governing principle in all institutional action” (Weber 1995, p. 549). The loss of the moral image after the Fall distorted this principle: humanity is now directed by other motivations, such as egoism and fear (Weber 1995, p. 550). Nevertheless, shared responsibility remains from the original creation, in the political image of God. All persons persist in political participation, even if institutions are now bent toward “protection and punishment” rather than imaging divine governance (Weber 1995, p. 550). The need for force, order, and protection is a consequence of the Fall.

Through God’s grace, this situation can be righted. Justification, which includes the restoration of the political image of God, “provides the necessary context for understanding the true nature and purpose of political institutions” even if political institutions remain mired in power and force rather than cooperation and consent (Weber 1995, pp. 550–51). Sanctification enhances the human capability for shared responsibility (Weber 1995, pp. 551–52). Institutions are a means by which humans organize their collective task of responsibility for creation, as the political image is restored within each of us. Thus, political institutions must be understood and measured in light of “the whole-making work of God” (Weber 2001, pp. 407–8).

5. The Whole-Making Work of God

Weber was not just an astute interpreter of John Wesley; he was a constructive political theologian and social ethicist in the Wesleyan tradition. He grounded his method “with an understanding of God as reconciler,” taking inspiration from 2 Corinthians 5:18–19 (Weber 2015, p. 27n1, also pp. 27–32). He defined reconciliation as “the renewal of fallen creation” and “the recovery of the human purpose of imaging God,” and he understood God’s work of reconciliation to be “the interpretative principle” for biblical narrative and salvation history (Weber 2015, pp. 3 and 28). According to Weber, the eschatological New Creation is accomplished by God through “a reconciling process, a whole-making, peacemaking process” that redeems history even though it is not fulfilled in history (Weber 1995, p. 552). Weber’s reformulated Wesleyan political theology is oriented toward God’s reconciliation and shalom, encompassing God’s work of creation, preservation, redemption, and renewal.

His was a unique voice among his contemporaries and forerunners. While often identified as a Christian realist, he considered this label misleading; he distinguished his approach from Reinhold Niebuhr (and, by association, also from Paul Ramsey), claiming to be “more directly christological” and “more inferential from the reconciling history of the work of God” (Weber 1989, p. 56; 2015, p. 3n3).

“My approach to political ethics, as to all questions of human responsibility, begins with Christology and the divine work of redemption. It places politics—and everything else—in the context of reconciliation, of God’s work in Christ restoring and redeeming the kosmos in its relationship to the divine selfhood and to its own created purpose.”

(Weber 1989, p. 56; 2015, pp. 2–3n3)

The difference with Niebuhr, he claimed, was evident in his understanding of civilizing power along a continuum of force and consent, contributing to the work of reconciliation (Weber 1989, pp. 56, 61, 75). He differed from the pacifism of John Howard Yoder (and, by implication, also from Stanley Hauerwas) in “defending the role of preservation in the historical work of peacemaking and reconciliation” (Weber 2015, pp. 8, 160). To Weber, peacemaking is not the absence of violence but rather involves “civilizing the organization of power” toward greater consent and greater freedom to be vulnerable: “Every peace is some particular combination of force and consent” (Weber 1989, pp. 61, 70, 75). In relation to the work of José Míguez Bonino, he considered liberation “an essential element” but “not sufficient as a constructive concept” for political theology (Weber 1989, p. 72). He also differentiated his trinitarian approach from Karl Barth and Deitrich Bonhoeffer, who based their political theologies “in Christ”; in contrast, Weber attended equally to God’s creating and sustaining work through the first and third persons of the Trinity (Weber 2001, p. 398).

Weber claimed distinct insights from his Wesleyan political theology compared to the traditional order of creation and order of preservation models. He contrasted his approach to the Thomistic natural law rooted in the order of creation (exemplified by Jacques Maritain and Catholic Social Teaching), claiming that government derives fundamentally not from “the social and rational character of human nature” but from the nature of God (Weber 1987, p. 91; 2001, p. 397). Contra Aristotle, the government does not derive from humanity’s nature as “political animal” and corresponding needs but rather from humanity’s creation in the divine image and vocation to imitate divine governance (Weber 2001, pp. 400, 407). For Weber, justice is not a natural virtue but an aspect of the moral image of God (Weber 2001, p. 397). In contrast to ethics rooted in the order of preservation (exemplified by Lutheran tradition, Helmut Thielicke, and Paul Ramsey), Weber understood the exercise of government as not a result of the Fall but rather a facet of God’s good creation (Weber 1987, pp. 82, 86n13; 2001, p. 397). Governments exist not only to restrain sin through order and defense but also to image God’s good stewardship and promote the common good (Weber 2001, pp. 397, 406). For example, redressing environmental degradation is one way that governments can imitate the “renewing and redeeming work of God” (Weber 2001, p. 406).

Instead of prioritizing the order of creation or the order of preservation as a theological starting point, Weber insisted on reading history backwards, from the standpoint of the order of redemption—the redemptive work of Christ and the whole-making work of God through reconciliation and shalom (Weber 1987, p. 98). Weber described this method as “concrete transcendence.” He asserted, “What is truly definitive of political reality is the process whereby the restatement and renewal of humanity in Jesus Christ come to expression in, through, and beyond the particular arrangements that human beings fashion” (Weber 1987, p. 97). Concrete transcendence “includes and reinterprets the elements of creation and preservation, but gives both primacy and historical force to the divine work of redeeming through reconciling and making whole” (Weber 1987, p. 97). Through concrete transcendence, the state and other institutions are expected to contribute to “limited and imperfect achievements of human community” (Weber 1987, p. 97). Political institutions function in “the persistent struggle to bring the human oneness established in Christ to transforming historical concreteness in the relationships that actually exist among human beings and their groups” (Weber 1987, p. 98). Thus, concrete transcendence offers “real, although limited, possibilities of progress in enlarging the reach of human community and enhancing its quality” (Weber 1987, p. 97). In the context of Wesleyan soteriology, political institutions contribute to God’s renewal of all creation and “disclose the social meaning of ‘going on to perfection’” (Weber 2001, p. 408). Extending the order of salvation to society and political institutions might appear to be grist for the mill of Christian nationalism. Yet, Weber’s political theology provides a clear rebuke.

6. Resisting Christian Nationalism

The phenomenon of Christian nationalism serves as a brief example of the ongoing relevance of Weber’s political theology. Christian nationalism has deep roots in US culture, and its current manifestation is decades in the making (Goldberg 2006; see also Cooper-White 2022, pp. 13–38).

To focus the present discussion, I follow the sociological approach of Samuel L. Perry and Andrew L. Whitehead, who defined US Christian nationalism as an ideology and cultural framework regarding “historical identity, cultural preeminence, and political influence” (Whitehead and Perry 2020, p. x). They explained, “Christian nationalism is a cultural framework—a collection of myths, traditions, symbols, narratives, and value systems—that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civic life” (Whitehead and Perry 2020, p. 10). Drawing on national survey data collected by researchers at Baylor University between 2007 and 2017, Whitehead and Perry rated Christian nationalist sentiment according to the respondent’s level of agreement to six statements (Whitehead and Perry 2020, pp. 7–8):

1.

“The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation.”

2.

“The federal government should advocate Christian values.”

*3.

“The federal government should enforce strict separation of church and state.”

4.

“The federal government should allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces.”

5.

“The success of the United States is part of God’s plan.”

6.

“The federal government should allow prayer in public schools.”

(* Note that responses to the third statement were reverse-coded). The researchers then grouped respondents into four “orientations” toward Christian nationalism: Rejecters, Resisters, Accommodators, or Ambassadors (Whitehead and Perry 2020, pp. 7–10).

The salience of this model lies in its predictive power. Whitehead and Perry showed that all four orientations to Christian nationalism are present across various typical groupings of US society (Whitehead and Perry 2020, pp. 38, 44). The authors were careful to point out, for example, that Christian nationalism does not equate to white evangelicalism—though there is high correlation (Whitehead and Perry 2020, pp. 44, 154). Instead, they argued that Christian nationalism is restructuring the US religious landscape in socially and politically significant ways (Whitehead and Perry 2020, p. 153).

“Simply put, knowing you are an Ambassador or Rejecter of Christian nationalism can now tell us far more about your social and political views than knowing what denomination you affiliate with, how often you attend church, and even whether you identify as Democrat or Republican.”

(Whitehead and Perry 2020, p. 44)

They observed that “Christian nationalism expresses a particular racialized understanding of national identity”; promotes authoritarian control; and advocates for a hierarchical relationship between men and women (Whitehead and Perry 2020, pp. 16–17).

This depiction of Christian nationalism does not discover or attribute a distinct theological viewpoint to Accommodators and Ambassadors. Although the symbols and narratives of Christian nationalism “express a specific vision of Christianity’s relationship to American identity and civic life,” the authors explained that “Christian nationalism is not ‘Christianity’ or even ‘religion’ properly speaking” (Whitehead and Perry 2020, pp. 2, 20). In fact, they showed a negative correlation between Christian nationalism and religious practice on most social issues (Whitehead and Perry 2020, p. 20). This disconnect provides Rejectors and Resistors a window of opportunity to defend their Christian faith against the idolatry of Christian nationalism—if they are sufficiently equipped to articulate a coherent political theology arising from their religious beliefs. Weber’s Wesleyan language for societal redemption provides such a tool.

7. Redeeming Society

Weber was careful not to equate renewal of the political image with efforts to Christianize or democratize society (Weber 2001, p. 417). The realist in him heeded Niebuhr’s warnings about self-deception and group egoism, and he voiced explicit concern about “the messianism of American political consciousness” (Weber 1989, p. 73; 2007, p. 233). Such fantasies, he observed, are “the motors of militaristic policies” (Weber 2015, p. 149). Extending “the order of salvation … from the realm of the individual salvation to that of societal transformation,” Weber outlined the “possibilities and limits in a Wesleyan social theory” (Weber 1991, p. 4). Specifically, he explored the idea of a redeemed society through the concepts of justification and sanctification.

Recognition of common humanity is fundamental to Weber’s Wesleyan political theology. He declared the following affirmation to be “the starting point for all theological thinking about politics”: “humankind has become one in the reconciling deed of God in Jesus Christ, and that through the power of God the powers of this world have been put in subjection to Christ” (Weber 1987, p. 96). Implied in Weber’s reformulation is a belief in prevenient grace: justification “makes all of humanity one people before God. … this work is for the whole creation, not only for … believers” (Weber 1991, p. 14). All of this is based on “the conviction that God has acted in Christ for the salvation—the wholemaking of the world,” calling us “to seek the good of the neighbor even when there is little or no prospect of good results” (Weber 1991, p. 19, original emphasis). Thus, the process of social redemption is “the cancelling of the self-endowed merit” of various groups, “breaking the power of this cancelled merit (read sin),” and “transcending … previous animosities” to enable “genuinely human fellowship” (Weber 1991, pp. 18–19). As a result of this process, redeemed relationships can increase freedom and justice and “extend and enhance consent as a primal element in social power” (Weber 1991, p. 19).

Can society be freed from the power of sin? Weber believed so, arguing from a standpoint of justifying grace. Necessary to any political theology within a Wesleyan framework is attention to the “persistent and pervasive effects” of sin, understood as “the individual will in rebellion against God” (Weber 1991, p. 7). The effects of sin extend to groups and institutions—but so does God’s grace. Weber asked, “Can a social theory be Wesleyan if it holds out no hope for breaking the power of cancelled sin in groups and institutions…?” (Weber 1991, p. 8). Instead of establishing a basis for collective guilt—a path he considered a theological dead-end, Weber explored the idea of corporate redemption (Weber 1991, p. 10). He observed enmity arising between persons because of their distinctive corporate identities and concomitant perceptions of “corporate merit” in relation to each other, for example, the enmity reported between the identities “Jew” and “Greek” in Ephesians 2:11–22 (Weber 1991, p. 10). Group identities that elicit valuation of persons in terms of the relative merit of those groups to which they belong undermine the equality inherent in the new identity in Christ. The problem, on a social level, is “the pride and power of corporate identity,” which may exist independently of individual actions (Weber 1991, p. 11). Here, Weber provided groundwork for addressing racism and White privilege, in particular. Thus, he named corporate merit as sin and interpreted “justification in corporate terms as the cancelling of corporate merit and the conferring of a fully human status before God” (Weber 1991, pp. 10–11). This denunciation of group pride does not erase all group distinctions, only those that engender “self-justifying merit” in the place of “common humanity under God” (Weber 1991, pp. 11–12, 14).

Having identified sin and justification in the realm of the social, Weber then considered sanctification in both its critical and constructive modes. In a Wesleyan framework, sanctification functions both to “break the power of cancelled sin” and to enable “going on to perfection” (Weber 1991, p. 13). Critically, this means that any remaining corporate identity must be understood within “the context of a common humanity under God,” limiting the power and value of any “ideological structure” of the group (Weber 1991, p. 14). Specifically, the “songs, flags, scriptures, uniforms, and heroes” of the United States, when elevated to sacred status, become idolatrous—such as would have been the case under a proposed US constitutional amendment “prohibiting and punishing the desecration of the national flag” (Weber 1991, pp. 14–15). Weber warned against attempting “to unite the cause of Christ with the national cause” as an idolatry in the form of “the religion of nationalism” (Weber 2007, p. 235). Thus, Weber would have rejected the Christian nationalist claim, “The success of the United States is part of God’s plan” (Whitehead and Perry 2020, p. 8), as a deception while also asserting that all governments have the potential to participate in God’s work of reconciliation. Any corporate identity—such as US Christian nationalism—that demands unqualified devotion, unquestioned loyalty, or ultimate power is sinful.

While Christians may embrace a distinctive vocation or identity, even this identity does not confer any special merit (Weber 1991, p. 14). Any pretension by Christians to a favored status should be unmasked as a form of religious tribalism at odds with God’s saving work in Jesus Christ. The power of the state or other political institutions in the divine plan is limited by its responsibility not only to its citizens but also to common humanity: “the process of concrete transcendence relativizes the sovereignty of states without negating state responsibility” (Weber 1987, p. 97). Thus, Weber argued for “some degree of authorization from those who are not members of that particular society, but whose being and well-being are affected” (Weber 1987, p. 98). The authority of power is rooted in “the human community,” not in particular societies or religions (Weber 1987, p. 98)—and clearly not in the combined form of US “Christian nationalism.”

Constructively, sanctification allows the new humanity to grow and mature in Christ. While individuals may expect to be made perfect in love in this life, Weber was quick to point out the impossibility of entire sanctification for groups, societies, and nations: “The process of social transformation must be seen in eschatological terms” (Weber 1991, pp. 17, 19; 1995, p. 552). Weber specifically denied “equating liberation … with salvation”: societies may overcome certain forms of oppression but never be entirely free from injustice (Weber 1991, pp. 17–18). Growth and maturation at a societal level entails a continued need for checks on power and commitments to individual rights (Weber 1991, p. 17).3 Specifically, Weber rejected any expectation that societies could be freed from the need to use force to maintain political order (Weber 1991, p. 18). Just as the individual experiences sanctification not as unbridled freedom but rather as the freedom to obey God’s law, social sanctification entails a freedom circumscribed within a more just social order rather than the absence of institutional power and structure (Weber 1991, p. 18). This “order of preservation” function, however, must be interpreted within the whole-making work of God: “the ordering functions of government are also for the eliciting of community and not only for the restraint of sin” (Weber 1987, p. 89).

Political institutions have positive responsibilities. To emphasize this point, Weber redefined patriotism not as individual loyalty to one’s country but as protecting, strengthening, and developing the patria, “the nation, its people, institutions, ethos, and traditions” (Weber 2007, pp. 226, 239). He viewed the patria in the context of grace while being clear about its place in God’s work of redemption: “The patria is not the Kingdom of God, although the inflated rhetoric of religious nationalism tends to equate the two. It is essential to maintain this critical distinction and to hold the former over the latter as both judgment and limited possibility” (Weber 2007, p. 228).

“we never are justified in treating the patria itself as holy and according it a degree of loyalty that belongs only to the divine. … the patria—in this case, the United States—is merely temporal, limited, relative and nothing more. It is true that we meet the holy in the experience of the body politic, but our first encounter with it is as a word of judgment that denies any basis for national exaltation or political self-righteousness.”

(Weber 2007, p. 238)

Thus, Weber was keenly aware of the history of injustices upon which the United States has been built—including the extermination of native populations, the slave trade, and ongoing patterns of structural racism—and understood the work of redemption to include identifying and calling them out as sin.

The “limited possibility” of the patria is its contribution to human fulfillment—recognized and articulated in the preamble to the US Constitution, Weber observed (Weber 2007, p. 240n4). Since patriotism involves both preservation (defense) and constructive efforts toward the common good, political institutions have a role “in generating, shaping, integrating, and extending community” (Weber 1987, p. 96). Weber set out the following agenda: pursuing common interest; including in community those previously excluded; “full and collegial participation”; power used to benefit the weakest members; “healing old wounds”; and enhancing freedoms with support (Weber 1991, p. 16). This agenda directly rebuts the “assumptions of nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity, along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism” discovered among Christian nationalists (Whitehead and Perry 2020, p. 10).

8. Practical Implications

Weber insisted that politics be interpreted within the theological context of God’s reconciling activity in Jesus Christ, work which is ongoing and which will not be completed in human history (Weber 2015, pp. 148–49). War, peacemaking, lawmaking, patriotism, and all other aspects of political life must be interpreted within this theological context; the refusal to submit human action to the judgment and creative potential of God’s redemptive plan is to place oneself in the place of God. His realism mixed pessimism with hope, sin with grace, belief with action—rooted in a deep faith in what God is doing today as well as in the eschaton. Such an all-encompassing perspective on political theology invites critiques of universality over particularity, a grand narrative over diverse human contexts, assumptions of power over experiences of marginalization, and intellect over embodiment. However, he also emphasized everyday discipleship, providing specific guidance to churches and church leaders.

Church leaders must stand boldly in the context of grace. Within the tension of the dual citizenships of patria and the Kingdom of God, he recognized several temptations (Weber 2007, p. 235). The temptation of Christian nationalism is to allow national symbols to take on a sacred character undifferentiated from faith in Christ. One can witness this syncretism on full display in the way many US congregations celebrate the national Independence Day as if it were part of the liturgical calendar—and with greater fervor than their observance of Pentecost. To test the congregational temperature, one needs only to ask whether the US flag should be displayed in the sanctuary—simply to raise the question is a heretical act to Christian nationalists. Another temptation is to limit the political discourse about “values” to only a few wedge issues rather than the wider scope of human responsibility, “such matters as poverty, environment, rights of women and minorities, and restraints on the use of military force” (Weber 2007, p. 235). Thus, for example, mercy has a necessary place in theo-political discourse when resisting Christian nationalism (Wise 2025).

To refute Christian nationalism and other sinful expressions of group merit, Weber encouraged churches and church leaders to speak out and to act out. Political theology is a practice of thinking politically within a theological context, one that centers reconciliation in every church activity and all aspects of life in Christ (Weber 2015, pp. 150–51). Thus, for example, reconciliation should be “the constant theme of all preaching,” not just a reaction to abuses of power or unjust uses of state violence (Weber 2015, p. 154). Lifelong Christian education about grace, redemption, and reconciliation should provide a bulwark against the ideology and idolatry of Christian nationalism. Weber understood this kind of formation to occur, in part, during the worship and liturgical life of Wesleyans. For example, he claimed that the sacrament of Holy Communion should relativize the self-serving claims of “the religion of nationalism,” instead subjecting them to the larger themes of God’s work in Christ (Weber 2007, pp. 235, 237–38). Thus, faithful church leaders can resist Christian nationalism through worship and preaching, Christian education, the sacrament of Holy Communion, prophetic criticism, and public policy statements (Weber 2007, pp. 234–38; 2015, pp. 152–58).

9. Conclusions

Weber made a compelling case for a trinitarian, redemption-focused political theology—inclusive of individuals as well as institutions—based on the imago Dei, God’s gracious activity in human history, and the ministry of reconciliation to which Christians are called. He spoke to and from a position of privilege to hold those in power—persons such as himself in countries such as the United States—accountable to God and neighbor. His political theology provides a clear refutation of US Christian nationalism, and he complemented his rhetoric with social action in political institutions and through the church, attempting to live out the theology he espoused. As his political theology is put in critical conversation with other Wesleyan scholars as well as representatives of other theological traditions, the full impact of his intellectual legacy will become clearer.