Christian Nationalism and the Fifth Commandment
26 February 2025
By Dr Adi Schlebusch
Introduction
The fifth commandment, "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you," is not only recorded in the original Decalogue (Ex. 20:12; Deut. 5:16), but is also affirmed by Christ Himself (Matt. 15:4; 19:19; Mark 7:10; 10:19; Luke 18:20) and by Paul as the "first commandment with promise" (Eph. 6:2). Obeying the fifth commandment aligns humanity with the core tenets of God’s ordained social order, and through this obedience comes the blessing of longevity in the land or territory given to us by God—a promise that encompasses not merely an individual or a family's life, but also that of a people, a nation, and its progeny.
The rise of egalitarianism—the belief in the absolute equality of all people regardless of their roles, heritage, or station—amounts to a direct assault on the fifth commandment and its implications, and has led to the breakdown of the family and the erosion of national identity. A society that rejects the authority of fathers and mothers is inevitably one that rejects the foundational structure of the nation itself. Indeed, whenever a people fails to honor its ancestors, it is a signal that the deeper, more profound obligations inherent in the fifth commandment have been violated. The consequences of this disobedience are evident in the decay of Western civilization, where self-loathing, oikophobia, and demographic displacement have aggressively come to the fore in recent decades.
The Fifth Commandment and the Family
To understand the fifth commandment’s implications more fully, we must consider what the duty it prescribes, to honor our parents, fully entails. The contemporary normalization of dishonoring family traditions, and even the destruction of the family unit itself through the ideology of radical egalitarianism, is of course fundamentally at odds with the fifth commandment. Yet the biblical commandment to honor father and mother is not exclusively about obedience to individual parents. It inherently demands respect for one's broader family lineage—honoring grandparents, great-grandparents, and beyond. To truly honor our parents is to honor those who preceded them. The lack of such reverence is not just a familial failing; it is a societal breakdown, as it signifies a rejection of the very structure that has held a people together for generations. For example, since marriage amounts to the unification not just of two individuals but of two families-both with an intergenerationally established identity and heritage-miscegenation itself can be seen as an act of dishonor, not just to the parents of both families but to both parties' ancestral lineages and ethnic identities as a whole. As I will now proceed to explain, in biblical view of society, honoring one's family also entails a recognition of the broader national and ethnic framework in which that family exists.
The Fifth Commandment and Nationalism
The family is the basic building block of society, but it is by no means an isolated one. A Christian’s duty to honor his parents naturally extends to honoring his ancestors and his people. Just as individuals must care for their families, so too must nations care for their own people and their own borders. Scripture teaches that nations, as much as families, are ordained by God. In Acts 17:26-27, Paul affirms that God not only made of one blood all nations of men, but that He has determined the bounds of their habitations. The existence of nations is not merely a human construct but a divine institution. The preservation of a nation, its borders, its heritage, and its people is a sacred duty just as much as the preservation of the family is. Proverbs 22:28 offers a striking parallel to the fifth commandment’s implications for preserving a national identity through national borders: "Do not remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set." This directly parallels the need to maintain the boundaries that have been set by our ancestors (or "fathers") for the purpose of preserving national borders and the native people defended by those borders. As Adam Plewes points out in his recent booklet on What the Bible says about National Borders: "Boundaries impose an inter-generational obligation. Our forebears established a claim to a particular land with the intention of passing it on to succeeding generations, and according to Scripture we have a duty not to overturn that arrangement."
Just as the family is a divinely ordained structure whose identity and property must be honored and respected, so too are nations and the territories or countries in which those nations as extended families reside. A nation that disregards its heritage, its traditions, its borders, and its people will find itself unraveling, much like a family that abandons its roots.
The egalitarian spirit that permeates modern society directly contradicts the duties set forth by the fifth commandment. Egalitarianism, in its essence, denies the legitimacy of not only hierarchical but of distinctions—whether those distinctions are familial, gendered, or racial. In contradistinction to this apostate spirit, the fifth commandment itself assumes the legitimacy of such distinctions. The command to honor father and mother presupposes a natural order that includes distinctions between the sexes as well as the patriarchal authority of the father. As noted, it also extends beyond the immediate family to include an obligation to honor one’s ancestors, which in turn necessitates an acknowledgment of the value of one’s ethnic and national identity. The breakdown of national distinctions under the guise of equality is a direct assault on the fifth commandment’s call to honor one’s familial and national heritage as is clearly implied in Proverbs 22:28. God has designed us to flourish in families and among our own people, and the heresy of egalitarianism—according to which all people are seen as completely interchangeable—fundamentally denies these divinely-ordained realities of creation. By contrast, the fifth commandment leads the Christian to recognize our duty towards our nations which, like our families, are divinely ordained and ought to be preserved. The Bible does not call for a world without borders or without distinctions between peoples. Rather, it calls for the sanctification of one’s own people and a commitment to their well-being.
As such, the fifth commandment, in its fullest sense, serves as the foundation for a Christian Nationalism that upholds the dignity of both the family and the nation as extended or tribal family. The blessing promised in the commandment—a long life upon the land—extends not just to individuals or families, but to nations that honor their familial structures, their national borders, and their heritage. Just as a child is obligated to honor his father and mother, so too must a nation honor its ancestors and its distinct identity. The integrity of the nation’s borders, the preservation of its culture, and the protection of its native population are all part of the outworking of this commandment.
Conclusion
In a world where globalism seeks to erase distinctions between nations and peoples, the Christian must stand firm in the conviction that God has ordained nations as part of His divine plan. We must reject the false ideology of egalitarianism, which seeks to level distinctions in ways that undermine the divine social order of nuclear, tribal, national, and racial families. Instead, Christians must embrace the biblical truth that the protection of national borders, the preservation of the native populace, and the honoring of one’s ancestral heritage are all integral to fulfilling the fifth commandment.
The fifth commandment must therefore be embraced not simply as a call to honor our parents, but to honor our family, our heritage, and our nation. As we fulfill this commandment, we align ourselves with God’s divine order and receive the promise of His blessing—a promise that encompasses not only our personal well-being but the flourishing of our nations and peoples. Let us therefore strive to honor the fifth commandment in terms of all of its implications, recognizing that our obedience to this commandment is unmissable for the preservation and flourishing of our families, our nations, and our progeny.