Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Showing posts with label American Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American Politics. Show all posts

Thursday, September 28, 2023

Christian Nationalism and the Death of Democracy

the Death of Democracy


By way of update I am listing several more references
to countering the perversion running rampant through
the evangelical church. Here, I am giving special
attention to Andrew Whitehead further below
- re slater


MAGA = Death
Violence, Chaos, Oppression

by R.E. Slater


Only dictators talk about executing people they don't like or imprisoning their perceived enemies. Of course, this isn't how a democratic rule of law works. It’s how a dictatorship works lead by venial characters protecting themselves, their power, and their money.

However, one might begin to understand why Christians allow for such venality to go on in America's political environment when believing this is how the Christian Jesus comes back to revenge himself against his enemies.

Can this be the reason people are not decrying Trump and his Trumpian minions? That they would rather impose anarchy and dictatorship by this idolized tin god? If so, the church has chosen a very poor idol to follow.

Myself, I am choosing to stand for everyone's liberty including the strengthening of our democratic government's Constitutional purposes and promises to be continually implemented towards daily practices of social equality and justice.

I also choose to stand against all miscreants who run after their failed tin gods declaring evil good and good evil.

Trump is the scion of death and hell, not the Savior of the bible. Trump completely shows himself to be a type of antichrist willing to destroy the world and to preach deceiving beliefs of oppression, hate, and evil as good. Such beliefs I would describe as apartheidism or white supremacy.

Conversely, the "second coming" of Christ spotlights the self-destruction these false faiths and gods bring upon themselves by their own lying hands which are given to chaos and mischief.

As Christ's own, we stand against all would-be gods and lying beliefs.

God is Love.

Love decries hate and false teaching.

MAGA is not love but is hate and false teaching.

MAGA teaches hate and oppression and supports all who would divide and harm the innocent.

MAGA is a false faith as much as it's evil leader is a false teacher.

MAGA is not Christ nor Christian nor acts Christianly.

MAGA never can be, nor never will be, Christian. MAGA is Death.

True biblical greatness is shown in loving "selfless sacrificial service" to the other....

But cannot be found in MAGA's death, ruin, and hate of the other.

These MAGA attitudes are from the wicked heart shown by its harming deeds.

MAGA does not make a nation "great again."

MAGA's very banner depicts its own lies and deceptions.

As true Christians we follow Jesus and love. Not MAGA. Not it's MAGA leaders. And not Death.

Christians are healers. We are life restorers. We are forgiving, compassionate, and actively working in the world rather than limiting ourselves to the isolationist church.

R.E. Slater
September 28, 2023


How traditional Christian doctrine understand the Second Coming of Christ:


* * * * * 


How Do We Confront White Christian Nationalism?

While it’s only one feature of the authoritarianism increasingly
on vivid display in this country, it’s critical to understand.


* * * * *


Is Christian Nationalism Turning Christianity Into A Religion of Hate?


* * * * * 


Power. Fear. Violence. These three idols of Christian nationalism are corrupting American Christianity.
Andrew Whitehead is a leading scholar on Christian nationalism in America and speaks widely on its effects within Christian communities. In this book, he shares his journey andreveals how Christian nationalism threatens the spiritual lives of American Christians and the church.
Whitehead shows how Christians harm their neighbors when they embrace the idols of power, fear, and violence. He uses two key examples--racism and xenophobia--to demonstrate that these idols violate core Christian beliefs. Through stories, he illuminates expressions of Christianity that confront Christian nationalism and offer a faithful path forward.
American Idolatry encourages further conversation about what Christian nationalism threatens, how to face it, and why it is vitally important to do so. It will help identify Christian nationalism and build a framework that makes sense of the relationship between faith and the current political and cultural context.

 


ANDREW L. WHITEHEAD

Andrew Whitehead is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Association of Religion Data Archives (theARDA.com) at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at IUPUI.

Whitehead is one of the foremost scholars of Christian nationalism in the United States. He is the lead author of Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States (Oxford University Press, 2020)—along with Samuel Perry—which won the 2021 Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. His next book, American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church, will appear August 15, 2023 from Brazos Press.

Whitehead is a sought-after speaker and has shared his work with diverse audiences: academic and public, religious and secular. Whitehead’s research on Christian nationalism has been featured across several national outlets including The New York Times, NPR, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, CNN Today, The Economist, Rolling Stone, and The Guardian. He has been interviewed on NBC News, National Public Radio, and the BBC, among others, and is routinely contacted for perspective on religion and politics from national and international news media. He has also written for The Washington Post, Time, NBC News, and the Religion News Service, among other outlets. Along with his work on Christian nationalism, Whitehead’s research also explores childhood disability and religion.

He is the author of fifty peer-reviewed journal articles. In 2019, his co-authored article “Make America Christian Again: Christian Nationalism and Voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election” (Sociology of Religion, 2018) won the Distinguished Article Award for both the Association for the Sociology of Religion and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Over his career, Whitehead has served as Principal Investigator or co-Principal Investigator on external research grants totaling over $5.2 million.

Whitehead serves as co-Director of the Association of Religion Data Archives (theARDA.com). The ARDA is the world’s largest online religion data archive and is currently funded through generous support from the Lilly Endowment and the John Templeton Foundation. Whitehead serves on the Board of Directors of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI.org) and the Religion Research Association.

From 2014 to 2020 Whitehead was a faculty member in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice at Clemson University. While there he was awarded early promotion, with tenure, in 2019. He also received the College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences Award for Excellence in Research, Emerging Scholar (2017) and the College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences Associate Dean’s Recognition of Scholarship in Journal Publications (2018).

Professor Whitehead earned his bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Purdue University. He completed his Ph.D. in Sociology at Baylor University in 2012.

Andrew Whitehead’s CV can be found here.



Amazon link

Why do so many conservative Christians continue to support Donald Trump despite his many overt moral failings? Why do many Americans advocate so vehemently for xenophobic policies, such as a border wall with Mexico? Why do many Americans seem so unwilling to acknowledge the injustices that ethnic and racial minorities experience in the United States? Why do a sizeable proportion of Americans continue to oppose women's equality in the workplace and in the home?
To answer these questions, Taking America Back for God points to the phenomenon of "Christian nationalism," the belief that the United States is-and should be-a Christian nation. Christian ideals and symbols have long played an important role in American public life, but Christian nationalism is about far more than whether the phrase "under God" belongs in the pledge of allegiance. At its heart, Christian nationalism demands that we must preserve a particular kind of social order, an order in which everyone--Christians and non-Christians, native-born and immigrants, whites and minorities, men and women recognizes their "proper" place in society. The first comprehensive empirical analysis of Christian nationalism in the United States, Taking America Back for God illustrates the influence of Christian nationalism on today's most contentious social and political issues.
Drawing on multiple sources of national survey data as well as in-depth interviews, Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry document how Christian nationalism shapes what Americans think about who they are as a people, what their future should look like, and how they should get there. Americans' stance toward Christian nationalism provides powerful insight into what they think about immigration, Islam, gun control, police shootings, atheists, gender roles, and many other political issues-very much including who they want in the White House. Taking America Back for God is a guide to one of the most important-and least understood-forces shaping American politics.


* * * * *


Photo by Maria Oswalt/Unsplash/Creative Commons


White Christian nationalism isn’t pro-life. It’s pro-order.


In the Christian nationalist vision, abortion is not a choice
but a violation of a collective moral fabric.


(RNS) — When the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in June 2022, United States abortion policy reverted to a time 50 years ago when a woman’s access to abortion and certain forms of contraception depended on where she lived, as individual states quickly moved to either enshrine the right to abortion or further restrict it.

But the court’s decision also returned abortion politics back to the 1970s and early 1980s, when the then-emerging religious right leveraged the debate over abortion to spread not only its biblical view of when human life begins, but its Christian nationalist view of the United States.

“Our great nation was founded by godly men upon godly principles to be a Christian nation,” said Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell Sr. in 1981. He also wrote, “If we expect God to honor and bless our nation, we must take a stand against abortion.”

From Falwell’s day to the present, Christian nationalism, or the desire to see a particularly conservative and ethnocentric expression of Christianity fused with American civic life, has played a vital part in the fight over Roe v. Wade. It has also permeated the Republican Party, which quickly adopted Falwell’s stance to bring millions of Americans who support the Christian right and abortion bans into its fold.


As we have written elsewhere, seeing Christianity as central to being truly American is powerfully associated with strong opposition toward abortion. This opposition tends not to consider whether the pregnancy is the result of rape, whether it has a strong chance of resulting in a serious birth defect or the mother’s health or financial ability to support a child. Americans who embrace Christian nationalism seek to ensure that all Americans abide by their anti-abortion views, regardless of circumstance.

In our work on Christian nationalist views, we have found, as Falwell’s views suggest, that Christian nationalists are motivated by a particular moral traditionalism, one that seeks to ensure that abortion is not defined as an expression of bodily autonomy. They view abortion instead as a violation of a collective moral fabric that, if frayed, will further degrade American culture and society.

Now, new data sheds further light on what motivates Christian nationalist thinking on abortion, by allowing us to measure Americans’ attitudes toward punishing women who seek abortions.

In a national, random sample of American adults surveyed by YouGov in October 2022, 56% of white respondents said the label “pro-life” describes them somewhat or very well. As we might expect, 75% of whites who identified as “pro-life” also said they supported overturning Roe v. Wade. Similarly, roughly three-quarters of whites who either identify as Christian nationalist by name or believe the government should declare the U.S. a Christian nation also support the SCOTUS decision.

That shouldn’t be surprising, since pro-lifers and Christian nationalists are often the same people. Roughly half of whites who strongly identify as pro-lifers affirm Christian nationalism as a label or policy preference, and more than 90% of those who identify as “Christian nationalist” also identify as “pro-life.”


Anti-abortion activist Doug Lane uses a ladder to peer over the covered fencing as he calls out to patients entering the Jackson Women’s Health Organization clinic in Jackson, Mississippi, moments after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade was issued, June 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

But these two groups are not identical in their beliefs. When asked whether they would support state governments arresting women who have abortions, fewer than 18% of whites who said “pro-life” described them “very well” would support such a move. But among white Americans who identified as Christian nationalists, more than 25% were in favor. That went up to 27% among those who strongly agree with declaring the U.S. a Christian nation.

Why the difference? Because Christian nationalism isn’t really about preserving life. It’s about order.

In a number of studies now, we and other social scientists have shown that Christian nationalist ideology, particularly among white Americans, is associated with support for political violence, the death penalty, torture, more guns, any-means-necessary policing and opposition to COVID-19 vaccines (or vaccines generally).

Christian nationalism, in other words, isn’t opposed to death. It’s opposed to disorder—specifically the disruption of established hierarchies and the traditional moral order.

We see it in Christian nationalists’ responses to other social issues. Alignment with Christian nationalism is also closely intertwined with traditional views about gender roles — specifically, “proper” roles for men and women in society. We see it in their views on democracy — they exhibit a lack of interest in collaboration or compromise and support limiting access to political participation.

It’s not surprising, then, that in the Christian nationalist vision of the United States, abortion is not available to women, or that Christian nationalists would be most in favor of prosecuting women who seek it out. Not for the sake of life, but order.
It is important to recognize that the number of white American adults who identify as Christian nationalist and support prosecuting women seeking abortions is relatively small — about 15 million people. However, many of these Americans are concentrated in a small number of states, where, as a result, we’re likely to see laws proposed, and maybe even passed, that criminalize abortion. Like in Missouri, which proposed allowing private citizens to sue anyone — in state or outside the state — who assists a Missouri resident having an abortion.

Now that the fight over abortion access has returned to the local and state levels, the influence of Christian nationalism will undoubtedly loom large.

(Andrew Whitehead is an associate professor of sociology at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at IUPUI and author of the forthcoming book “American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church.” Samuel L. Perry is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Oklahoma and co-author (with Philip Gorski) of “The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy.” Whitehead and Perry’s award-winning book “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States” appeared in March 2020. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)


* * * * *


amazon link


On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth and Protect Democracy Paperback – August 22, 2023 by Lee McIntyre (Author)

A powerful, pocket-sized citizen’s guide on how to fight back against the disinformation campaigns that are imperiling American democracy, from the bestselling author of Post-Truth and How to Talk to a Science Denier.

The effort to destroy facts and make America ungovernable didn’t come out of nowhere. It is the culmination of seventy years of strategic denialism. In On Disinformation, Lee McIntyre shows how the war on facts began, and how ordinary citizens can fight back against the scourge of disinformation that is now threatening the very fabric of our society. Drawing on his twenty years of experience as a scholar of science denial, McIntyre explains how autocrats wield disinformation to manipulatea populace and deny obvious realities, why the best way to combat disinformation is to disrupt its spread, and most importantly, how we can win the war on truth.

McIntyre takes readers through the history of strategic denialism to show how we arrived at this precarious political moment and identifies the creators, amplifiers, and believers of disinformation. Along the way, he also demonstrates how today’s “reality denial” follows the same flawed blueprint of the “five steps of science denial” used by climate deniers and anti-vaxxers; shows how Trump has emulated disinformation tactics created by Russian and Soviet intelligence dating back to the 1920s; provides interviews with leading experts on information warfare, counterterrorism, and political extremism; and spells out the need for algorithmic transparency from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. On Disinformation lays out ten everyday practical steps that we can take as ordinary citizens—from resisting polarization to pressuring our Congresspeople to regulate social media—as well as the important steps our government (if we elect the right leaders) must take.

Compact, easy-to-read (and then pass on to a friend), and never more urgent, On Disinformation does nothing less than empower us with the tools and knowledge needed to save our republic from autocracy before it is too late.


amazon link


Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point Hardcover – September 12, 2023 by Steven Levitsky (Author), Daniel Ziblatt (Author)

America is undergoing a massive experiment: It is moving, in fits and starts, toward a multiracial democracy, something few societies have ever done. But the prospect of change has sparked an authoritarian backlash that threatens the very foundations of our political system. Why is democracy under assault here, and not in other wealthy, diversifying nations? And what can we do to save it?

With the clarity and brilliance that made their first book, How Democracies Die, a global bestseller, Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt offer a coherent framework for understanding these volatile times. They draw on a wealth of examples—from 1930s France to present-day Thailand—to explain why and how political parties turn against democracy. They then show how our Constitution makes us uniquely vulnerable to attacks from within: It is a pernicious enabler of minority rule, allowing partisan minorities to consistently thwart and even rule over popular majorities. Most modern democracies—from Germany and Sweden to Argentina and New Zealand—have eliminated outdated institutions like elite upper chambers, indirect elections, and lifetime tenure for judges. The United States lags dangerously behind.

In this revelatory book, Levitsky and Ziblatt issue an urgent call to reform our politics. It’s a daunting task, but we have remade our country before—most notably, after the Civil War and during the Progressive Era. And now we are at a crossroads: America will either become a multiracial democracy or cease to be a democracy at all.


amazon link

Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump Audible Logo Audible Audiobook – Unabridged by Jennifer Mercieca (Author), Suzie Althens (Narrator), Blackstone Publishing (Publisher)

Historic levels of polarization, a disaffected and frustrated electorate, and widespread distrust of government, the news media, and traditional political leadership set the stage in 2016 for an unexpected, unlikely, and unprecedented presidential contest. Donald Trump’s campaign speeches and other rhetoric seemed on the surface to be simplistic, repetitive, and disorganized to many. As Demagogue for President shows, Trump’s campaign strategy was anything but simple.

Political communication expert Jennifer Mercieca shows how the Trump campaign expertly used the common rhetorical techniques of a demagogue, a word with two contradictory definitions - “a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power” or “a leader championing the cause of the common people in ancient times” (Merriam-Webster, 2019). These strategies, in conjunction with post-rhetorical public relations techniques, were meant to appeal to a segment of an already distrustful electorate. It was an effective tactic.

Mercieca analyzes rhetorical strategies such as argument ad hominem, argument ad baculum, argument ad populum, reification, paralipsis, and more to reveal a campaign that was morally repugnant to some but to others a brilliant appeal to American exceptionalism. By all accounts, it fundamentally changed the discourse of the American public sphere.


amazon link

How Democracies Die Paperback – January 8, 2019 by Steven Levitsky (Author), Daniel Ziblatt (Author)

Donald Trump’s presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we’d be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one.

Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die—and how ours can be saved.

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Diana Butler Bass - Understanding Christian Nationalism, Parts 1-3

Vote Common Good is trying to get Pennsylvania voters to understand the dangers of Christian nationalism. https://www.votecommongood.com/penn-live-in-billboards-evangelical-group-urges-faith-voters-to-ditch-support-of-mastriano/

Understanding Christian Nationalism

An invitation to explore the movement shaping American politics

by Diana Butler Bass
September 14, 2022

I got an email this week from a reader letting me know that his adult education group was using the recent Christian nationalism posts from The Cottage as a multi-week study leading up to the fall elections.

What a great idea! Until I read his note, however, I didn’t realize that I’d written a post each month since July on the subject. It certainly wasn’t a planned series. It just happened in conjunction with the news — and the intense interest in the subject of Christian nationalism.

He inspired me to turn the Christian nationalism essays into a three-part discussion curriculum that you can use.

Today’s post links all three of the essays in a single newsletter. I hope this will be helpful to you. Some may want to use these posts as my friend’s congregation is — for others that may be too controversial and you might want to read them in a small group. I do suggest that you engage them with others if possible.

I invite you to re-read them as a group — and with a group. I’ve enclosed some discussion questions for you to think about the ideas presented in each essay as well.

This three-part exploration of Christian nationalism involves terminology, theology, and history. It isn’t exhaustive (there’s much more that can be said), but it is provocative, thoughtful, and timely. And, since the essays are short, you needn’t read an entire book to engage important issues.

Of course, you may agree or disagree with various points and interpretations. That’s expected! Talking about a subject is often a good way toward greater understanding — and moderating fear we might have. Each of these posts comes from my own wrestling with these difficult days.


ESSAY #1: CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM EVERYWHERE?

In this essay, I explore the term “Christian nationalism” and suggest we might need to make finer distinctions in how we define political impulses in white evangelicalism.

Christian Nationalism Everywhere?



2 months ago · 60 comments · Diana Butler Bass

For discussion:
  • What do you think about the central claim of this essay? “Both of these things are true: America is not a Christian nation. And the United States was shaped by Protestantism.”
  • Why is it important to understand this paradoxical proposition? What might it mean for politics to grasp this history?


* * * * *


ESSAY #2: BAD BLOOOD

In recent weeks, talk of Civil War has skyrocketed. This essay looks at the connection between political conflict and theology that lends itself toward violence. This was one of the most widely read, shared, and discussed posts of the year at The Cottage.




a month ago · 90 comments · Diana Butler Bass

For discussion:
  • Do you worry that the central claim of Christianity involves blood and violence?
  • What do you make of this statement?: “Not every Christian who holds to the theory of blood-atonement is a Christian nationalist, but Christian nationalism depends on this theology and can’t survive without it.”
  • How might Christian theology, churches, and preachers address this? Where do you see these ideas in the news? Have you ever considered how bad theology might inspire political violence?


* * * * *


ESSAY #3: BAD HISTORY

Although most political commentators haven’t paid attention, white evangelical politics has been supported by and is twinned with a particular view of providential history. This essay returns to the theme of “Christian nation-ism” vs. “Christian nationalism” and explores it through history.




6 days ago · 63 likes · 58 comments · Diana Butler Bass

For discussion:
  • What do you make of the popularity of a book like The Light and the Glory?
  • And what does it mean that two best-selling histories — The Light and the Glory and A People’s History of the United States — seem to have helped create the political divisions today?
  • Why is history so often a contentious subject? Why do people fight over the past? Do you know someone who believes in this providential history?

Public Witness on Substack has been running some very good pieces about Christian nationalism. I particularly appreciated this recent post on Doug Mastriano. I recommend both their newsletter and their news and opinion website, Word and Way.

* * * * *

INSPIRATION

If you understand your own place and its intricacy and the possibility of affection and good care of it, then imaginatively you recognize that possibility for other places and other people. If you wish well to your own place and you recognize that your own place is part of the world, then this requires a well-wishing toward the whole world. In return you hope for the world's well-wishing to your place.

This is a different impulse from the impulse of nationalism. This is what I would call patriotism, the love of a home country that's usually much smaller than a nation. Nationalism always implies competition, always the wish that your nation might thrive even at the expense of other nations. Patriotism is the love of a home place or a home country that recognizes the obligation of charity toward other places and other people, and it recognizes that the prosperity of your place need not come at the expense of the prosperity of other places. There is a generosity, a charity, in what I recognize is the true patriotism, which is not necessarily implied by nationalism.

— Wendell Berry

 

The Cottage is a reader-supported publication. You can sign up to receive The Cottage for free or upgrade to a paid subscription.

 

Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Can Process Theology Intersect with American Evangelical Politics?




Can Process Theology Intersect with
American Evangelical Politics?


Here is a short list I quickly jotted down earlier this morning on why Process Christianity capably replaces both Evangelical Christianity and Progressive-Evangelical Christianity:

  • Process-based Christianity (sic, Whitehead & Cobb) has a more expansive theology removing artificial / subjective boundaries between its message and people.
  • Process Christianity places God's love at its center rail across all subjects, faiths, and cultures;
  • Process Christianity's judgments fall across the lives of religionists, moralists, and exclusionists; that is, like Jesus, it is intolerant of fake religion placing unnecessary burdens upon God's people;
  • Process Christianity seeks an organic, holistic approach to life;
  • Process Christianity lives out life as fully as possible with all others as love is suppose to do;
  • Process Christianity supports all true democratic principles such as equitable justice and seeks to remove systemic racism of all kinds;
  • Process Christianity practices what Jesus taught and exampled;
  • Process Christianity places the God of Love at its center of faith and all its beliefs, doctrines, theologies, and dogmas;
  • Process Christianity reads the narratives of the Bible as the failure of religionists who could not grasp the centrality of God's love in this life; how faith in God was not meant to yoke one another by unloving means; who constructed, and lived, in unlovingly ways; who preached harm and did awful things to their communities, neighbors, families, and society at large;
  • Process Christianity sees true faith as love in action and all other non-loving faiths as reconstructionist faith-based idolatries away from the God of love;
  • Process Christianity sees a future open to the infinite possibilities of love as it concresces forwards in innumerable permutations of love in action (sic, processual concrescence refers to "a valuative growing together" of selfhood in dynamic relationship with all societal members; to coalesce, condense, solidify in good and generative ways);
  • Process Christianity actively supports and creates ecologically good societies in balanced resource-sharing with all global communities in coordinating earth-restoration actions;
  • Process Christianity seeks to keep the attitudes of uncertainty and doubt at its epistemological center that it might healthily expand itself philosophically, theologically, culturally, and religiously in active embrace of upwardly generative practices of self-examination, proposition, speculation, and knowledge underlaid by valuative love;
  • Plus everything else I failed to mentioned here....

Process Christianity is the next processual revolution in the historic faith journey of man stripped of the unChristian philosophies of Hellenism, Westernism, and  any-and-all myopic acculturations of faith.

R.E. Slater
August 10, 2022


Dear Rachel called it many, many years ago. The church didn't like her message and chose indifference instead of repentance. When they did pretend to repent on Washington Square they prayed to a God of power and vengeance to send them a man after their own heart. Instead of David they got Saul. Instead of Jesus they enthroned another AntiChrist. They came to serve not their nation but themselves, their own comforts, beliefs, and bigotries. - res




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Trump is (NOT) a Process Theologian
& other questions with Thomas Jay Oord

Friday, August 5, 2022

Christians AGAINST Christian Nationalism - - or - - Why Constitutionalism is Better Than Church Law




Christians AGAINST Christian Nationalism
or
Why Constitutionalism is Better Than Church Law

by R.E. Slater
August 4, 2022


Sacrilege - "A gross irreverence toward a hallowed person, place, or thing."


Apparently I have more to say on the subject of Christian Nationalism and its blasphemy of Christ, the Church, the Christian faith in general, and God made into its idolatrous image. But instead of preaching or dissenting I will present judicial arguments and observations to its sacrilegious error and theocracy of dominionism meant to demean, pervert, and dehumanize societies of people.

I begin with the following observations:

  • The God many Christians worship is a God of love to all people without distinction of gender, sex, race, creed, culture, or ethnic.
  • This God is a just God and not a God who is unjust.
  • A God whom the Christian faith has grossly distorted over its many histories of inquisitions, crusades, apartheidism, and authoritarian hunger for theocratic control over all men, women, nations, and beliefs (currently known as Christian nationalism).
  • Much of the Old Testament - and Jesus' actions against the religion of his day - spoke against a faith in God gone deeply bad. Whose ways, means, views, rites, and shriveled heart defiled God, making him want to puke in the presence of their sacrifices.

To the God who is altogether larger than our imaginations of his loving, holy being, we speak out once again against a church gone bad.

R.E. Slater
August 4, 2022

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Christians Against Christian Nationalism

As Christians, our faith teaches us everyone is created in God’s image and commands us to love one another. As Americans, we value our system of government and the good that can be accomplished in our constitutional democracy. Today, we are concerned about a persistent threat to both our religious communities and our democracy — Christian nationalism.

Christian nationalism seeks to merge Christian and American identities, distorting both the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy. Christian nationalism demands Christianity be privileged by the State and implies that to be a good American, one must be Christian. It often overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation. We reject this damaging political ideology and invite our Christian brothers and sisters to join us in opposing this threat to our faith and to our nation.

As Christians, we are bound to Christ, not by citizenship, but by faith. We believe that:

  • People of all faiths and none have the right and responsibility to engage constructively in the public square.
  • Patriotism does not require us to minimize our religious convictions.
  • One’s religious affiliation, or lack thereof, should be irrelevant to one’s standing in the civic community.
  • Government should not prefer one religion over another or religion over nonreligion.
  • Religious instruction is best left to our houses of worship, other religious institutions and families.
  • America’s historic commitment to religious pluralism enables faith communities to live in civic harmony with one another without sacrificing our theological convictions.
  • Conflating religious authority with political authority is idolatrous and often leads to oppression of minority and other marginalized groups as well as the spiritual impoverishment of religion.
  • We must stand up to and speak out against Christian nationalism, especially when it inspires acts of violence and intimidation—including vandalism, bomb threats, arson, hate crimes, and attacks on houses of worship—against religious communities at home and abroad.
  • Whether we worship at a church, mosque, synagogue, or temple, America has no second-class faiths. All are equal under the U.S. Constitution. As Christians, we must speak in one voice condemning Christian nationalism as a distortion of the gospel of Jesus and a threat to American democracy.

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The Constitution is a progressive document. Both in its day and now in the present. It is a legal document defending and protecting the rights and liberties of all people. It intends to bring freedom and equality to all classes, sexes, genders, faiths, and cultures.

By the Constitution's very nature its is politically progressive and something liberals should be talking up a great deal more in the face of the ever more constrained view from the right speaking originalism, textualism, and faux arguments leading away from an ever expanding and deepening Constitutional society.

Even the Constitution's foundation was, and is, based upon the Declaration of Independence. They together, taken in force, but admit one thing - an expanding narrative of freedom, equality and justice for all at all times and in all places.

Textual (faux)Originalism does not. It moves in the direction of authoritarian control by any political mechanism, most recently, again, by the Church's boundless enthusiasm for legalism, excluding doctrinnaires, obsequious self-love, and self-righteous promotion - if not self-centered condemnations.

All in all, better an equitable and fair civil law than any church theocracy claiming to be of God when its meanness of love and spiteful virtues is anything but of God or God's love.

- R.E. Slater

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The principal difference between conservative justices then and conservative justices now is that the conservatives of 30 years ago were practical. They didn't like abortions, but they understood that no society in history had successfully prevented them. They understood that criminalizing doctors who can perform the procedures safely only leads to unsafe, unregulated procedures. They understood that pregnant people will seek control over their own bodies, whether or not the state or the courts or the church acknowledges their bodily autonomy. But such practical-minded conservative justices were replaced by shameless political ideologues and, more recently, by religious zealots — indoctrinated, vetted and even prepped for perjury by the Federalist Society.

- Salon

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[P]rogressives have not been fighting originalism; we have been fighting fauxriginalism. Fauxriginalism distorts the meaning of the Constitution, often by focusing selectively on some parts of the document, rather than by looking at the text, history, and values of the whole Constitution. Conservatives like to claim that originalism leads them to conservative results, but that's because they too often give a cramped meaning to the Constitution's text and ignore the constitutional history and values that help elucidate what that text means. In truth, conservatives have been a bit like the kid in our grade school class who delivered a book report, but who had only read the first chapters of the book — and didn't even read them that carefully.

- Praveen Fernandes

* * * * * * * * *


As utilized by the so-called conservatives on the current court, textualism and originalism have become ways to muzzle the voice of the Constitution and keep it from rising from its draped featherbed to address the pressing issues of our own time.

- Salon

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The original Christian nationalists were the KKK. Today (White) Christian Nationalism = White Supremacy without a whole lot of difference between the pagan Jesus now to the horrific Jesus then.
As a (Jesus) Christian, all radical Christian nationalists are anathema, acriminous aberrations, and very blasphemy to the "God of Love" we worship in Christ Jesus. The Jesus Christian faith stands apart from this Christianized sectarian gospel of hate and division.

- R.E. Slater

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Christian Nationalism Is On The Rise | Ayman
July 29, 2022

The religious right has been around for a long time. But in recent years, a new kind of public, political expression of religion has grown increasingly common: Christian nationalism. But what do Christian nationalists really stand for and where is the movement headed? Amanda Tyler, lead organizer of Christians Against Christian Nationalism, joins Ayman to discuss.


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Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett
(Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

How the Supreme Court's "fauxriginalists"
are warping the Constitution


Right-wing justices claim they're delving for true meanings
beneath the Constitution. It's another Big Lie


by Kirk Swearingen
July 29, 2022


Maybe you've seen the editorial cartoon by Bruce MacKinnon that depicts Lady Justice being held down and muzzled by well-dressed thugs from the GOP.

It was drawn in response to Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing, during which Republican senators were working hard to brush away the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford about Kavanaugh's character (or lack thereof), but the instantly classic cartoon can easily stand apart from the specific circumstances of its creation — Lady Justice being assaulted by white male members of the Republican Party.

In a recent interview with Ezra Klein for his podcast, legal scholar Larry Kramer discusses how liberals, after a series of progressive decisions by the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren, began to rely too much on the courts and too little on politics, while the right methodically mounted a political counterrevolution, one that included redeployment of the judicial review philosophy known as "originalism."

Constitutional textualists — who formerly claimed to be wedded to the letter of the law — became originalists (or was it the other way around?), delving beneath the text itself for deeper meanings, sometimes in search of the founders' intent and sometimes to ascertain (as they claimed) how the text would have been understood by reasonable people at the time it was written. People, say, like the town blacksmith or the chandler chasing a chicken in the street, who would likely have given little thought to, say, the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law, even in terms of the big issues of their time.

The truth is that so-called modern originalists or textualists, like the late Justice Antonin Scalia or his intellectual heirs Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, also feel free to roam much farther afield than that, seeking justifications for their favored interpretation in English common law and philosophy.

As utilized by the so-called conservatives on the current court, textualism and originalism have become ways to muzzle the voice of the Constitution and keep it from rising from its draped featherbed to address the pressing issues of our own time (when, you know, our beds are often ordered online because we heard about them on a podcast).

But is the use of the term "originalism" by Scalia and his acolytes itself actually disingenuous?

That's the argument of Praveen Fernandes of the Constitutional Accountability Center, who suggests that a true originalist approach to interpreting the Constitution would not provide conservative results, because the document is, on the whole, remarkably progressive. Instead, Fernandes says, judicial conservatives distorting the meaning of the Constitution by practicing fauxriginalism:

[P]rogressives have not been fighting originalism; we have been fighting fauxriginalism. Fauxriginalism distorts the meaning of the Constitution, often by focusing selectively on some parts of the document, rather than by looking at the text, history, and values of the whole Constitution. Conservatives like to claim that originalism leads them to conservative results, but that's because they too often give a cramped meaning to the Constitution's text and ignore the constitutional history and values that help elucidate what that text means. In truth, conservatives have been a bit like the kid in our grade school class who delivered a book report, but who had only read the first chapters of the book — and didn't even read them that carefully.

I'm reminded that we used to joke about something we called the "scholarly bluff," where you regurgitate a quote from a recognizable (but perhaps not too recognizable) name to end an argument. We laughed about it because it was so simple — and so effective. Your quote might not actually support your argument, and you might not even have gotten it right. But people tended to back down in the face of such seeming erudition.

Given that the overtly anti-federalist Federalist Society was itself disingenuously named, it figures that it would get behind a disingenuous form of originalism. In a recent column for the Nation, Elie Mystal writes that the nature of conservative justices began to change after 1992, when fundamentalist Christians were deeply disappointed by the Planned Parenthood of Southern Pennsylvania v. Casey ruling:

The principal difference between conservative justices then and conservative justices now is that the conservatives of 30 years ago were practical. They didn't like abortions, but they understood that no society in history had successfully prevented them. They understood that criminalizing doctors who can perform the procedures safely only leads to unsafe, unregulated procedures. They understood that pregnant people will seek control over their own bodies, whether or not the state or the courts or the church acknowledges their bodily autonomy.

But such practical-minded conservative justices were replaced by shameless political ideologues and, more recently, by religious zealots — indoctrinated, vetted and even prepped for perjury by the Federalist Society.

Mystal likens the extremists on the current court to an invasive species that was purposely introduced into a local ecosystem to address some specific problem, but then ran amok. Now that they have thoroughly devoured Roe v. Wade, they're eager to turn their attention to other prey, such as the separation of church and state. Mystal says affirmative action is next.

The only solution, he writes, is for Democrats to meet the challenge by changing the nature of the court. "After 1992, Republicans engineered a new breed of conservative justice. The rest of us must create a new kind of Supreme Court before it's too late."

On Klein's podcast, Kramer notes a few ways the court could be changed to reduce the effect of the ideology of individual justices. He also asserts that the Constitution is a progressive document, something liberals should be talking up a great deal more in the face of the ever more constrained view from the right.

As used by so-called conservatives, "textualism" and "originalism" are tools to muzzle the Constitution's true voice, and prevent it from addressing the issues of our time.

How progressive is it really? According to scholar Garry Wills, the Establishment Clause alone was a defining miracle of the U.S. Constitution. As James Madison wrote in his "Memorial and Remonstrance" statement on church and state, disestablishment both protected the free expression of religion and protected all citizens from the use of "Religion as an engine of Civil policy." In a letter to Madison, Thomas Jefferson argued that as the earth belongs to the living, any constitution (not just ours) was a living document, something that needed to be updated frequently as society evolved.

As for the ideological and religious warriors on the current court (who would make Madison shudder), do yourself a favor and listen to the entire podcast. Two quotes from Kramer stood out for me:

"If the founding generation had been originalists, we wouldn't be here," and "The only way you can be an originalist is to be a really, really bad historian."

Unless you believe, that is, that the Constitution is indeed a progressive document and that a truly originalist interpretation demands an expansive view of the founding principles of the framework. As Kramer says, conservatives should never have been allowed to occupy the Constitution and claim it as their totem, the same way they have done for so long with the flag and the concept of patriotism. Supporters of the ongoing Big Lie about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection cannot claim patriotism; those who are fine with the Confederate flag being paraded through the Capitol cannot claim allegiance to our nation's actual flag.

It's all been an endless con, since the days of Ronald Reagan, in service to giving more to the wealthy and big corporations while dividing the citizens from one another, mostly over culture-war issues the powerful don't much care about. (Americans used to be proud to mind their own business.)

Now the idea is to "flood the zone" with nonsense in order to keep the public from noticing our nation's astonishing levels of income inequality, to dumb children down further, to install permanent minority rule and to shut down the American experiment once and for all.

As both Mystal and Kramer note, we need to work toward a new kind of Supreme Court, one less dominated by political ideology and religious dogma. That won't be easy, but if we don't, MacKinnon's tragic vision of Lady Liberty will be all too accurate — with the dire human costs afflicting many generations to come.


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Image: Illustration by Mallory Rentsch / Source Images: Cameron Smith /
 Mohammad Aqhib / Unsplash / Reza Estakhrian / Getty Images


What Is Christian Nationalism?

An explainer on how the belief differs from other forms of 
nationalism, patriotism, and Christianity.

by Paul Miller
February 3, 2021

You’ve probably seen headlines recently about the evils of Christian nationalism, especially since December’s Jericho March in Washington, DC, and since a mob of Trump supporters—many sporting Christian signs, slogans, or symbols—rioted and stormed the US Capitol building on January 6.

What is Christian nationalism, and how is it different from Christianity? How is it different from patriotism? How should Christians think about nations, especially about the United States? If nationalism is bad, does that mean we should reject nationality and national loyalty altogether?

What is patriotism, and is it good?

Patriotism is the love of country. It is different from nationalism, which is an argument about how to define our country. Christians should recognize that patriotism is good because all of God’s creation is good and patriotism helps us appreciate our particular place in it. Our affection and loyalty to a specific part of God’s creation helps us do the good work of cultivating and improving the part we happen to live in. As Christians, we can and should love the United States—which also means working to improve our country by holding it up for critique and working for justice when it errs.

What is nationalism?

There are many definitions of nationalism and an active debate about how best to define it. I reviewed the standard academic literature on nationalism and found several recurring themes. Most scholars agree that nationalism starts with the belief that humanity is divisible into mutually distinct, internally coherent cultural groups defined by shared traits like language, religion, ethnicity, or culture. From there, scholars say, nationalists believe that these groups should each have their own governments; that governments should promote and protect a nation’s cultural identity; and that sovereign national groups provide meaning and purpose for human beings.

What is Christian nationalism?

Christian nationalism is the belief that the American nation is defined by Christianity, and that the government should take active steps to keep it that way. Popularly, Christian nationalists assert that America is and must remain a “Christian nation”—not merely as an observation about American history, but as a prescriptive program for what America must continue to be in the future. Scholars like Samuel Huntington have made a similar argument: that America is defined by its “Anglo-Protestant” past and that we will lose our identity and our freedom if we do not preserve our cultural inheritance.

Christian nationalists do not reject the First Amendment and do not advocate for theocracy, but they do believe that Christianity should enjoy a privileged position in the public square. The term “Christian nationalism,” is relatively new, and its advocates generally do not use it of themselves, but it accurately describes American nationalists who believe American identity is inextricable from Christianity.

What is the problem with nationalism?

Humanity is not easily divisible into mutually distinct cultural units. Cultures overlap and their borders are fuzzy. Since cultural units are fuzzy, they make a poor fit as the foundation for political order. Cultural identities are fluid and hard to draw boundaries around, but political boundaries are hard and semipermanent. Attempting to found political legitimacy on cultural likeness means political order will constantly be in danger of being felt as illegitimate by some group or other. Cultural pluralism is essentially inevitable in every nation.

Is that really a problem, or just an abstract worry?

It is a serious problem. When nationalists go about constructing their nation, they have to define who is, and who is not, part of the nation. But there are always dissidents and minorities who do not or cannot conform to the nationalists’ preferred cultural template. In the absence of moral authority, nationalists can only establish themselves by force. Scholars are almost unanimous that nationalist governments tend to become authoritarian and oppressive in practice. For example, in past generations, to the extent that the United States had a quasi-established official religion of Protestantism, it did not respect true religious freedom. Worse, the United States and many individual states used Christianity as a prop to support slavery and segregation.

What do Christian nationalists want that is different from normal Christian engagement in politics?

Christian nationalists want to define America as a Christian nation and they want the government to promote a specific cultural template as the official culture of the country. Some have advocated for an amendment to the Constitution to recognize America’s Christian heritage, others to reinstitute prayer in public schools. Some work to enshrine a Christian nationalist interpretation of American history in school curricula, including that America has a special relationship with God or has been “chosen” by him to carry out a special mission on earth. Others advocate for immigration restrictions specifically to prevent a change to American religious and ethnic demographics or a change to American culture. Some want to empower the government to take stronger action to circumscribe immoral behavior.

Some—again, like the scholar Samuel Huntington—have argued that the United States government must defend and enshrine its predominant “Anglo-Protestant” culture to ensure the survival of American democracy. And sometimes Christian nationalism is most evident not in its political agenda, but in the sort of attitude with which it is held: an unstated presumption that Christians are entitled to primacy of place in the public square because they are heirs of the true or essential heritage of American culture, that Christians have a presumptive right to define the meaning of the American experiment because they see themselves as America’s architects, first citizens, and guardians.

How is this dangerous for America?

Christian nationalism tends to treat other Americans as second-class citizens. If it were fully implemented, it would not respect the full religious liberty of all Americans. Empowering the state through “morals legislation” to regulate conduct always carries the risk of overreaching, setting a bad precedent, and creating governing powers that could be used later be used against Christians. Additionally, Christian nationalism is an ideology held overwhelmingly by white Americans, and it thus tends to exacerbate racial and ethnic cleavages. In recent years, the movement has grown increasingly characterized by fear and by a belief that Christians are victims of persecution. Some are beginning to argue that American Christians need to prepare to fight, physically, to preserve America’s identity, an argument that played into the January 6 riot.

How is Christian nationalism dangerous to the church?

Christian nationalism takes the name of Christ for a worldly political agenda, proclaiming that its program is the political program for every true believer. That is wrong in principle, no matter what the agenda is, because only the church is authorized to proclaim the name of Jesus and carry his standard into the world. It is even worse with a political movement that champions some causes that are unjust, which is the case with Christian nationalism and its attendant illiberalism. In that case, Christian nationalism is calling evil good and good evil; it is taking the name of Christ as a fig leaf to cover its political program, treating the message of Jesus as a tool of political propaganda and the church as the handmaiden and cheerleader of the state.

How is Christianity different from Christian nationalism?

Christianity is a religion focused on the person and work of Jesus Christ as defined by the Christian Bible and the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. It is the gathering of people “from every nation and tribe and people and language,” who worship Jesus (Rev. 7:9), a faith that unites Jews and Greeks, Americans and non-Americans together. Christianity is political, in the sense that its adherents have always understood their faith to challenge, affect, and transcend their worldly loyalties—but there is no single view on what political implications flow from Christian faith other than that we should “fear God, honor the king” (1 Pet. 2:17, NASB), pay our taxes, love our neighbors, and seek justice.

Christian nationalism is, by contrast, a political ideology focused on the national identity of the United States. It includes a specific understanding of American history and American government that are, obviously, extrabiblical—an understanding that is contested by many historians and political scientists. Most importantly, Christian nationalism includes specific policy prescriptions that it claims are biblical but are, at best, extrapolations from biblical principles and, at worst, contradictory to them.

Can Christians be politically engaged without being Christian nationalists?

Yes. American Christians in the past were exemplary in helping establish the American experiment, and many American Christians worked to end slavery and segregation and other evils. They did so because they believed Christianity required them to work for justice. But they worked to advance Christian principles, not Christian power or Christian culture, which is the key distinction between normal Christian political engagement and Christian nationalism. Normal Christian political engagement is humble, loving, and sacrificial; it rejects the idea that Christians are entitled to primacy of place in the public square or that Christians have a presumptive right to continue their historical predominance in American culture. Today, Christians should seek to love their neighbors by pursuing justice in the public square, including by working against abortion, promoting religious liberty, fostering racial justice, protecting the rule of law, and honoring constitutional processes. That agenda is different from promoting Christian culture, Western heritage, or Anglo-Protestant values.

Paul D. Miller is a professor of the practice of international affairs at Georgetown University and a research fellow with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.