Peter Leithart:

Contemporary politics is polarized between multiculturalists and (for lack of a better term) populists, and the problem of language, as practice and symbol, often takes center stage. Many Christians have allied themselves with the populists. It’s an understandable alliance. Lovers of the local, Christians want to protect their nations from Babelic fragmentation.

At bottom, though, the church must regard monolingual populism with deep ambivalence. The Spirit forms the church as a polyglot polity in the midst of existing polities. When we defend the church’s rights as a public institution, we are necessarily defending a form of multiculturalism. Alt-rightists see this, and find the “foreign tongue” of, say, immigrant churches profoundly threatening.

The policy and cultural import of Pentecost isn’t straightforward. Nations, after all, aren’t churches. But Christians labor in hope that Spirit will make his presence felt among the nations. While acting and speaking in and to the cities of men, we must act and speak as citizens of a Pentecostal society.