Ben Sasse dismisses some Christian nationalism as impractical: 'Weirdo online phenomenon'
By Jon Brown - Posted at The Christian Post:
Published July 18, 2026
Former Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., suggested during a recent podcast that Catholic integralism and some forms of Christian nationalism are politically impractical and built on a faulty eschatology.Speaking during a podcast with Reformed theologian Michael Horton that aired Wednesday, Sasse praised the genius of the American constitutional system before Horton asked him to weigh in on Catholic integralism and Christian nationalism. He asked whether those who seek to reduce the separation between church and state are confusing "the penultimate with the ultimate, the secular with the sacred, [and] looking for the shining city on a hill here and now in the state."
"You say, 'Should they be taken seriously?' I mean, ultimately, I think no. But I want to be humble about how and why we get there," Sasse said.
Sasse, who is also Reformed in his theology and has been a longtime friend of Horton, noted that Christians can be reasonably skeptical of Enlightenment assumptions, but warned against utopian ideas that confuse the Kingdom of Heaven with temporal political systems.
