Jeroboam, Golden Calves, and White Christian Nationalism
Jeroboam’s Alternative Religion
In 1 Kings 12:25–33, we find a kingdom divided. As Rehoboam takes the throne of the southern kingdom of Judah, Jeroboam takes control over the tribes to the north that become the northern kingdom of Israel.
Because the Temple of the Lord is located in Jerusalem within Judah, Jeroboam fears that the people within the northern kingdom would defect to the southern kingdom since they would make frequent pilgrimages to the Temple. So, he comes up with the idea to create two golden calves in Bethel and Dan where people would worship and offer sacrifices instead.
“Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt,” Jeroboam tells his subjects. To complete his plans, Jeroboam orders the construction of shrines around Israel, appoints an alternative priesthood that is separate from the line of the Levites, and creates an entire alternative liturgical calendar.
Jeroboam’s schemes are complete — he has created an alternative religion to the worship of the Lord in order to secure his political ends. The alternative religion attempts to be as close to the true worship of God, even claiming to be the “Elohim” who redeemed the people out of Egypt.
Our Alternative Religion
Jeroboam’s alternative religion is not just some interesting historical tidbit for us to file away into the back of our minds as random Bible trivia. There is so much for us to consider about how White Christian nationalism today is the new alternative religion.
White Christian nationalism attempts to put the name of “God” — yes, even “Jesus Christ” — as the lynchpin that holds together their political pursuits. An entire alternative priesthood of those who call themselves “pastors” direct those under the alternative religion’s spell towards the various high places that have been erected outside of the true Temple. They claim to follow the God who has redeemed them from sin, yet clearly walk in the footsteps of the golden calves of civil religion.
Deconstructing Alternative Religion
God’s response to Jeroboam’s alternative religion was clear — he teared the whole thing down. In 1 Kings 13, God commissions a man of God to tell Jeroboam, as he making an offering at an alternative altar, that a child of the house of David named Josiah would initiate the complete deconstruction of Jeroboam’s alternative religion. The false altars would be broken, the false priests would be vanquished.
As God fulfilled this promise in King Josiah’s reign, he fulfilled it to the uttermost in the life, death, and resurrection of the Greater Josiah, King Jesus. Jesus turned over the tables of corruption and oppression in the Temple courts, confronted the Pharisees of their alternative religion, and died the death of the accursed so that the true Temple would be raised again in three days.
On this side of His resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost, the church as His body are empowered to do the work of our Master Carpenter. We are to tear down the alternative religion and worship that surround us, including the White Christian nationalism that has crept into our pews and pulpits. As we deconstruct this alternative religion as the hands and feet of our Carpenter, we show the world “a city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
