Shall the Christian Nationalists Win?
by Rodney Kennedy
Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. He pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton (OH) – which is an American Baptist Church – for 13 years, after which he served as interim pastor of ABC USA churches in Illinois, Kansas, New York, and Pennsylvania. He is now a full-time writer, and lives in Louisiana. His eighth book, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit, has very recently been published (and sometime in the next few months we will have a rightingamerica Q and A with the author).
My subject is the Christian nationalist controversy which threatens to divide the American churches, as though there’s already not enough trouble over abortion, gay marriage, transgenders, and immigration. Let’s begin by looking at Acts 5. The Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court, is about to order the execution of two Christian apostles. In opposition Gamaliel speaks: “Refrain from these men and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God” (Acts 5:35 – 39, KJV).
We now face a similar situation crying out for the voice of reason, in dire need of a Gamaliel to speak truth to power. The Christian Nationalist program is essentially illiberal, intolerant, and idolatrous. They are on a campaign to roll back the gains in human rights and control the levers of political power.
The leader of this pack of “wolves in sheep’s clothing” is David Barton. His wingman is Robert Jeffress. In his sermon, “America Is a Christian Nation,” now available as an illustrated coffee table book for a $30 donation, Jeffress borrows from Barton to make – as documented by historian John Fea – “wildly exaggerated claims” while also “peddl[ing] false notions” about the First Amendment and filling his sermon with “one problematic historical reference after another.”
Fea is not alone in pointing this out. Nearly every serious American historian, “including those who teach at the most conservative Christian colleges,” has debunked Barton’s claims. May the Lord bless the historians for a faithful witness.
Barton, Jeffress, and their fellow ahistorical Christian Nationalists claim that America was founded as a Christian nation, and that the major institutions of American government and culture are to be operated by and controlled by Christian Nationalists. Let’s examine these claims.
America Was (Not) Founded as a Christian Nation
Christian Nationalists affirm, “America is a Christian nation.” How can I go against the preaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress? He is the pastor of the 12,000 member First Baptist Church of Dallas. He is on Fox and has an online ministry to hundreds of thousands.
Who am I to go against such authority? Well, I am a Baptist preacher with a word from the Lord. That’s how. And Jeffress is a false prophet of Christian Nationalism, and his church is “the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”
American historian David L. Holmes, in The Faiths of the Founding Fathers, notes the influence of deism, agnosticism, and some Christianity among our founders. The makers of America were a mixed bunch. Some of the Christians among them were “lukewarm” and not much for church attendance. A few were strong evangelicals. Many were strongly influenced by the Enlightenment.
Two of the most prominent founders, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, had a combination of deist beliefs and Christian ones. Actually, Jefferson and Franklin succeeded in using the Christian God to form the American God. As Mark Noll discovered, America’s God is America, and Americans do not need to believe in God because they believe in belief. And in our time, belief has been reduced to “opinions.”
There is no Jesus in our founding documents. You would think a nation founded as a Christian nation would be rooted in the teachings of Jesus: “conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to hell. The third day he rose again from the dead.” There’s none of the Sermon on the Mount in the Constitution. There’s a Bill of Rights, but no Beatitudes. There’s none of the suffering, sacrificing servant of God in our founding documents. God is not portrayed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but, instead, as “Divine Providence.”
America’s god is a generic god, more deist than Christian. And, as David Ray Griffin notes, it is deism that opened the door to what would become materialistic atheism. Benjamin Franklin, who was a paradigm for the religious beliefs of the founders, clearly laid out his beliefs:
Here is my Creed, I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe …. As for Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of Morals and his Religion as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw, or is likely to see; …. and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts to his Divinity; tho’ it is a Question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, where I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble.
One has only to recall Jefferson taking a razor blade and cutting out all the miracles and claims to the divinity of Jesus as the son of God to realize the founding fathers were a mixture who were not easily capable of producing a Christian nation, but who were wise enough to leave in a god amenable to almost every American.
America Should (Not) Be a Christian Nationalist Government
Let there be no mistake as to the goals of Christian Nationalism. These self-proclaimed “apostles” and “prophets” believe they have been anointed by God to serve as God’s agents in ushering in his future kingdom – a “bringing of heaven to earth.” Their goal is to bring every aspect of American culture under their control: family, government, arts and entertainment, media, business, education, and religion.
Christian Nationalists are not, in fact, Christian. As Stanley Hauerwas reminds, “The Christian God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Trinity is not some further specification of the generalized god affirmed in the Pledge, but the Trinity is the only God worthy of worship. The Christian pledge is not the Pledge of Allegiance, but rather is called the Apostles’ Creed.”
Let me help you see this biblically. Jesus tells his disciples “You know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you, but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave” (Matthew 20:25 – 27).
Christian Nationalists want to be lords instead of servants. They want to be self-righteous rulers, not slaves of righteousness. They want to “lord it over” instead of serving the needs of the people. The Christian Nationalists are like godless Gentiles in our midst, godless Gentiles with an unmitigated lust for power. Their spirit has nothing in common with the One who said he “came not to be served but to serve” (Matthew 20:28).
Moreover, Christian Nationalists are not good nationalists. They have forgotten that the church is supposed to be an alternative to the politics of Pharaoh and Caesar. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. says, “Nationalism, at the expense of another nation [or the people of our nation], is just as wicked as racism at the expense of another race. In other words, a nationalist is a bad patriot.”
While Jeffress, in “America Is a Christian Nation,” cherry-picks sayings from the founding fathers, he has almost nothing from Scripture. Apart from his reference to Hosea 4:6 and Psalm 33:2, there’s not much guidance from God’s Word. He ends his ahistorical lecture, disguised as a sermon with Psalm 33:2 like a preacher who has forgotten to preach from his text and throws it in at the end for good measure. I don’t trust preachers without texts.
Various types of Christian Nationalists are selling us guide maps to buried treasure, pulling out yellowed parchments with “sayings of the founding fathers” (a patriot’s Gospel of Q) and trying to convince us these dated guides tell us the truth about America, about our past, about our present. But their maps are flat, and we feel like they are hiding something. We feel there are whole regions of our biblical and national experience they’ve never set foot upon – as if they claim to have mapped New Orleans because they visited the Super Dome.
I’m not buying the maps of Chrisitan Nationalism, and I will not be guided by their false prophets – Barton and Jeffress. I’d rather go to a fortune teller for my future predictions than trust the misinformation and lies of David Barton about our past, our present, and our future. I’d sooner read my horoscope than the horrors of Jeffress predicting the apocalypse in the next twenty years.
The story of Israel wanting, even demanding a king, is a major theme of the Old Testament. I would argue Israel’s unraveling as God’s faithful servant people started in the lust for a king. The Israelites said to Samuel, “Appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” Israel never quite came to grips with the hard parts of freedom: responsibility, accountability, and the common good. There was always something in the heart of the people wanting to abdicate freedom to a king.
Let me refresh your biblical memories of God warning Israel of the perils of having a king. You can open your Bibles to I Samuel 8 and read for yourself what happens when you turn over your God-given freedom to a group desiring to rule over us in the name of God. This is the biblical expression of Christian Nationalism – a monarch.
Do Americans want to abdicate our freedoms? Do we want to sit in bars, sipping on Bud Lites, telling bad jokes, complaining about the government, and allow a bunch of pious, stressed-out Christian leaders tell us what to do and how to do it? Do we want to surrender our freedom to people who don’t care about us? Do we wish for the Christian Nationalists to tell us what our children can read, what they can study in school? To tell us what we can do in our bedrooms? To tell us what we can watch on our Smart TV in our living rooms? Do we want these people in charge of all aspects of our lives? I say, “No.” A million times no.
Please allow me to help you one more time biblically. Flip through the pages from I Samuel to II Chronicles and stroll through the Hall of Kings. A king like Saul, who performed so badly, God had to step in and take the “anointing” away from Saul. A king like Solomon, who enslaved his own people. A king like Ahab – a sniveling, pouting king willing to steal the land of one of his subjects and allow his murder. And a long list of little, maniacal, greedy, evil kings. The words of the Old Testament, “He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” – words which sound like clods of clay landing on the top of a casket – resound throughout Israel’s history. .
There could be no greater tragedy than that the Christian Nationalists gain control of the government. And I do not believe for one moment they are going to succeed. Their agenda demolishes democracy, destroys truth, decency, patriotism, national unity, racial progress, their own people, and our nation. It is a negative, debilitating, fake cure for the problems we face. A Christian Nationalism based on bigotry, narrowness, and lack of empathy is not a good nationalism. And it flies in the face of the very prayer Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”
Now, do we understand? God’s will, not David Barton’s will. God’s will, not Robert Jeffress’ will. God’s will, not MAGA’s will. God’s will, not the will of SCOTUS. “Thy kingdom come.”
Shall the Christian Nationalists win? No. Hell no! That said, liberals need to become more vigilant and more involved. This is not a Sunday picnic. We are in a fight, and it must be waged by Christians and those of other religious commitments and those of no religious commitments – all those who are unwilling to live in a nation without democracy.
In Benjamin Franklin’s terms, our nation is in better hands with “virtuous” heretics than “wicked” Christians.
(Biblical texts for this article: 1 Samuel 8:1-22, II Chronicles 36:1-14, Acts 5:33-42, Matthew 6:7-13).
Motivated Cognition and Self-Deception
by Terry Defoe
Pastor Terry Defoe is an emeritus member of the clergy who served congregations in Western Canada from 1982 to 2016, and who ministered to students on the campuses of the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. He is the author of Evolving Certainties: Resolving Conflict at the Intersection of Faith and Science, a book which, among other things, chronicles his transition from Young Earth Creationism to evolutionary creation. Evolving Certainties is endorsed by scientists in biology, geology and physics, with a foreword written by Darrel Falk, former president of BioLogos, an organization that has as its goal the facilitating of respectful discussion of science / faith issues. Defoe has been educated at: Simon Fraser University (BA Soc); Lutheran Theological Seminary, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (M.Div.); and, Open Learning University, Burnaby, British Columbia (BA Psyc).
INTRODUCTION
Modern technology has fostered a revolution in communication technologies. Individuals are on the receiving end of more information now than ever before. And that information is increasingly provided by partisan news sources and social media whose journalistic standards are less than optimal. Individuals are called upon to assess the trustworthiness of this information and now with A.I.-generated disinformation making inroads, discernment is more important than ever.
Modern media affords consumers the ability to sort through an array of information choices, picking those that tell them what they want to hear. Many individuals respond to information that challenges their beliefs by using the various heuristics and psychological shortcuts (McRaney and Hagen 2011, 268) which are mentioned in this paper. This paper outlines the findings of the social sciences on the phenomenon of denial in relation to important social policy decisions such as those related to climate change, which may be made on the basis of politicized, less-than-factual information. The paper also discusses strategies for dealing with denial in its various manifestations.
DENIAL
The phenomenon commonly known as denial has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. Researchers in the social sciences are investigating the mental gymnastics involved in denying or suppressing threatening information. Denial is prompted by exposure to dissonant information that contradicts existing beliefs. It is about finding comfort in beliefs contradicted by evidence. Denial has been defined as motivationally distorted information gathering and processing (Balcetis 2008). It is multifaceted and multi-causal — a key component of the human psychological immune system.
Confirmation bias is the promotion of information that supports a particular point of view, excluding any impartial consideration of contradictory evidence. Confirmation bias seeks out information that confirms a particular viewpoint. Denial avoids or discounts information that is uncomfortable. It is more often motivated by emotion than it is by rational thought (Clore and Gasper 2000, 39). Denial protects a fragile ego. It minimizes ideological discomfort and dismisses contradictory information. It is essentially a social rather than an individual phenomenon. It is encouraged by interaction with individuals who hold similar views, individuals who typically come to know each other through common social media interests (Bardon 2019, 33). Denial is destructive on several different levels — with individuals, with society, and sometimes globally as well.
Science denial stands in the way of scientific progress and muddies the water when it comes to scientifically-informed social policy decisions. The greatest danger to social policy formulation comes not from ignorance, but from a willful blindness to the truth (Musil 1994, 268–86).Challenges to ideological beliefs are typically met with anger, avoidance, and interpretive bias. Human beings hate to be wrong. They don’t take kindly to being challenged or contradicted. Our picture of the world is regularly distorted by self-interest, peer influence, prejudice, fear, and favoritism. As we will see, denial restores a sense of peace, but often at a price.
GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION
Conservatives are ideologically predisposed to be suspicious of government intervention in society. Conservative critics of government-assisted programs such as George Will criticize those programs as being nothing more than socialism under another name. Socialism, it is argued, can eventually lead to totalitarianism. Somewhere along the line, folks on the right have surreptitiously redefined socialism, linking it with dog-whistle themes such as Marxism, fascism, and autocracy. This mental sleight of hand can be quite easily accomplished when your target audience lacks the requisite background knowledge. A little study would reveal that progressive social democracies like Sweden and Denmark are doing very well, with a high standard of living and a generally happy populace.
Concern over government intervention came to the fore during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic took hold, especially in the United States, the relevant medical science was politicized, and for many, pseudoscience took charge, encouraged by a scientifically illiterate president. During the pandemic, right-wing media told people what they wanted to hear and provided support for those beliefs. Individuals who lack scientific literacy are easy marks for flim-flam artists like Donald Trump. During the pandemic, the world was given a first-hand lesson in the power of denial to upend legitimate public policy decisions, and in this case, potentially life-saving policy decisions.
As the pandemic gained momentum, and in the interest of public safety, governments made the difficult decision to close down public meeting places, including houses of worship. Conspiracy theorists got to work immediately. They argued that governments were closing down churches not because they wanted to protect people’s health, but because they wanted to eliminate those houses of worship altogether. Such, of course, was not the case. Based on this kind of fallacious reasoning, and purportedly in defense of their very existence, many conservative churches defiantly did remain open, and many of their members died unnecessarily of COVID-19 as a result.
ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM
Many conservatives complain that their beliefs are ridiculed or attacked by a liberal elite, including a liberal media and education system. Many conservatives are of the opinion that secular universities are indoctrination centers for liberalism. It’s ironic that those who make this claim are more than willing to use the same techniques themselves. Those who make this claim are more than willing to ban books they don’t like. The 2012 official party platform of the Texas GOP opposed the teaching of critical thinking skills in schools because it was argued that would disrupt the parents’ right to socialize their children as they see fit (Bardon 2019, 303). In other words, the Texas GOP argued that it was supporting parents’ right to socialize their children apart from government interference.
Many conservatives prefer homeschooling. This is especially true in religious communities. Homeschooling allows for greater control over the content of curriculum. A substantial proportion of evangelical Christians oppose the teaching of evolution. And this is typically one of the places where science denial takes root in American culture. Research indicates that up to 70% of the American population denies evolutionary science in some form (Liu 2013).
THE MEDIA
Individuals on the right habitually refer to the media as if it was monolithic. They argue that the media is biased against traditional Christianity. They seem to be unaware of the fact that media outlets exist on an ideological spectrum from left to right and everything in between. The arrival of the internet, social media, Facebook and the like brought huge changes to the way information is discovered, distributed, received and shared. Behind the scenes in social media, algorithms direct individuals to topics of interest and to communities of like-minded individuals.
With a minimum of effort, individuals can align themselves with media outlets that tell them what they want to hear. Many folks have their favorite partisan news source on at home throughout the day. Each day, for hours on end, they marinate in a particular political point of view. What they are hearing is best described as opinion rather than news. Add to that the fact that these news sources curate what they want their viewers to know. That involves what they share and also what they fail to share.
RELIGION
Religion has persisted as an important part of the human story for many reasons. Germane to the present discussion, religion satisfies profound emotional needs (Jost et al. 2014, 4) . It deals with existential issues such as reassurance, purpose, certainty, stability, inclusion, superiority and protection of cultural identity. Religion calms anxiety over mortality. Evangelicals pride themselves on reading the Bible literally, which, when it comes to scientific truth, makes them susceptible to pseudoscience and outright science denial (Geiger 2017). Evangelical religion and mainline science are natural cognitive sparring partners.
Acceptance of the theory of evolution is not so much about science as it is about a person’s religious beliefs. Religion can be an effective tool for maintaining the status quo. Partisan media outlets and right-wing politicians know very well how religion can be used as a means of control. Evangelical patriarch Billy Graham (1918 – 2018) once said, “I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.” (Frost, Bauer, and Graham 1997)
SCIENCE
Science generates knowledge via a methodology designed to protect against confirmation bias. Lack of scientific literacy among evangelicals means that many do not know or understand how scientific methodology actually works. Evangelicals insist that scientific claims should conform to common sense and to their religious traditions, in a sense arguing that science should be kept on a short leash. Republican Governor Chris Christie, who, with Donald Trump, has a similar dismissive attitude towards science, once claimed that he didn’t need science because he has an intuitive sense of how things work. At the end of the day, science is a human endeavor and exists in a social and cultural context. Cultural biases are identified and hopefully kept in check by scientific methodology, most commonly described as methodological naturalism.
An individual’s political ideology typically predicts their beliefs about science. Donald Trump succeeded in politicizing science during his time in the White House. That politicization blunted the nation’s response to COVID-19. Many individuals died unnecessarily because they or their loved ones believed the pseudo-science they were hearing on partisan media. In a keynote address to the American Scientific Affiliation’s 2024 conference, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health during the pandemic (and Dr. Fauci’s boss), estimates the number of unnecessary deaths at more than 230,000.
Conservatives face a steady stream of dissonance-inducing discoveries and information from mainstream science. Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a classic example of science denial. YEC is at least partially responsible for the science denial that came out of the closet during the Trump administration. YEC is denial on steroids. Actually, it’s more than denial. It’s denialism (Kahn-Harris 2018), which is based on the idea that if the truth doesn’t work for you, then go ahead and construct a new truth and propagate that. There’s been a major increase in science denial in the last few decades, and this has occurred at a time when scientifically accurate information can literally make the difference between life and death. Evangelicals have been at the center of science denial for decades and ought to be held accountable for misleading large numbers of people.
SOCIAL FACTORS
Not surprisingly, denial has a strong social component. Individuals are attracted to groups that share their worldview. Implicit in group membership is the expectation that individuals will share and defend group beliefs, and when those views are challenged, as they surely will be, group members will circle the wagons, so to speak, and vigorously defend their views. Human beings have a powerful need for belonging, and an equally powerful need to be right. If we conform to the group and its standards, our standing in the group will be enhanced. We learn early on that it’s not a good idea to betray our tribe by publicly challenging its beliefs or practices (Suhay 2015). When the group achieves a victory, group members share in it, and when the group is criticized, individuals share that too.
Consider the following scenario. A barber from a small, tight-knit community in the U.S. Bible Belt would soon be out of a job or have his customer base dry up if he was to stray too far from what is culturally acceptable in his small town (Kahan 2012). For instance, if he was to become a card-carrying Democrat or announce to all his friends that he’d given up his young Earth creationism and adopted an evolutionary point of view, townspeople would have their ways, some subtle and some not so subtle, of indicating their displeasure with the barber’s newfound radicalism.
At the end of the day, in this case and in many others, behind-the-scenes social pressure would ensure that conformity is rewarded and radical views sanctioned. A process psychologists call “groupthink” takes place when group members keep their opinions to themselves for the sake of group unity. The tribe comes first. The superiority of the group is beyond question. Group members quickly learn what is expected of them, and in most cases, comply.
CHANGING MINDS
Social factors, as we have demonstrated, often cause problems in terms of implementing social policy. Thankfully, social factors also suggest solutions. Social identity theory (Trepte and Loy 2017) claims that the best way to change minds is to work alongside individuals in their local contexts, promoting goals that are important to you and to them. In addition, challenges that require the cooperation of both groups [i.e., superordinate goals] in order to be successful are helpful. Ask someone who has taken on the new paradigm to speak to fellow members and explain their decision. An in-group messenger has more credibility with the group than someone from the outside.
Persistent personal contact helps build trust, and an in-person meeting is better than a virtual meeting in this regard (Young 2017). People do not want to be forced to take a stand, They do not want to be put on the spot. There is no place for condescension or overconfidence; no place for scolding or coercion. Tell your story and encourage others to do the same. Individuals are reluctant to change their minds on ideologically-charged positions. In dealing with denial, it’s best to be honest right up front and ask a person what sort of evidence would change their mind.
Atmospheric scientist and evangelical Christian Katharine Hayhoe knows the evangelical subculture well (Von Bergen and Mannon 2020). I recently attended an online seminar in which Katharine was the main speaker. At the end of her presentation, time was set aside for Q and A. I submitted a question asking Katharine if evangelicals ought to take the blame in some way for climate science denial. Her answer surprised me. She said that if there is blame to be assigned, it should be laid at the feet of US evangelicals. They are the only evangelicals globally who obsess about this particular issue.
Full acceptance of anthropogenic global warming has increased slowly over the years, from 45% in 2014 to 57% in 2024 (Kiley 2015). 74% of Americans believe that climate change is in fact occurring, but the number who would admit that humans are causing it is 57%, 17% less. Global warming is indeed an existential threat to humanity. But many people are emotionally and materially invested in the fossil fuel industry. They would take umbrage with that claim. Their views are supported by deliberately mendacious and, I would add, well-funded merchants of denial.
Too many citizens have no idea how to apply critical thinking to the situations they encounter in everyday life. Some strategies for initiating change have the potential to change minds. For example, conservatives may move in a pro-environmental direction if the focus is changed from economics to the stewardship of God’s creation (Doran 2017). Issues can be presented in such a way as to foster audience agreement. It’s important to find common ground.
CONCLUSION
A vibrant democracy depends on an informed electorate. That goal is far from being accomplished in the US. Many Americans, unfortunately, are decidedly uninformed. One third of the American population cannot name a single branch of government. Many of those who call for tax breaks in the name of trickle-down economics cannot explain how it works. Many do not understand how wealth is distributed. Most of the population has no idea what percentage of GDP is spent on foreign aid (“Voter Ignorance Threatens Deficit Reduction | The Fiscal Times,” n.d.). Many overestimate the number of immigrants in the country, especially immigrants with an Islamic background.
Most Americans cannot locate Iraq on a map. Many are woefully inadequate in science and political literacy. An uninformed electorate is ripe for deception – fair game for the purveyors of misinformation. And politicians given the responsibility of formulating social policy often let party politics get in the way of what is best for the people. And when it comes to issues of global warming, decisions made in Washington, D,C, can have global consequences.
The Bitter Heart of Martha-Ann Alito: How the Meaning of Signs Change
by Tucker James Hoffmann
Tucker James Hoffmann is a graduate student at the University of Georgia in the Rhetorical Studies program housed in the school of Communication Studies. During his undergraduate tenure at the University of Dayton, Tucker worked closely with Drs. Susan and Bill Trollinger to analyze Turning Point USAs history and involvement in the evangelical Christian and white Christian nationalist movement. Tucker has his eyes set on the future as he continues his work studying far-right Christianity as a political movement in the US. He is enrolled as a Masters student and has the goal of securing a PhD in Rhetorical Studies.
A notable landmark between my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio is a waste management plant in Walton, Kentucky. Atop an overgrown waste dump is a huge American flag with a semi-truck trailer below that usually brandishes pro-conservative slogans. From 2016 to 2022, it featured the standard “TRUMP: Make America Great Again” banner. To my mind, the juxtaposition of a huge American flag and slogans on behalf of the former White Christian Nationalist president on an odorous dump speaks volumes about politics in the US.
This past June, as I was returning home from a wedding in Dayton, Ohio, I noticed something more peculiar than the usual evangelical, White Christian Nationalist messaging I’ve grown accustomed to on my drive. Behind the tree line of the highway a new flagpole appeared, this one flying a flag divided into four quadrants separated by a white cross. The center features a heart pierced by a spear and surrounded by thorns, topped by a cross engulfed in fire.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a symbol that was adopted by the Catholic Church as early as the 7th century. In the 12th century, Christ’s bleeding heart was a common homiletic tool for Franciscan and Dominican Friars preaching across the world. According to the Sacred Heart Basilica in Hanover, Pennsylvania, the preaching of these friars made the focus of Christ’s heart the marquee symbol of Divine Love. According to the Catholic Church, during an apparition to St. Margaret Mary, Jesus Christ revealed his heart, saying “My Divine Heart is so passionately in love with humanity, and with you in particular, that it cannot keep back the pent-up flames of its burning charity any longer. They must burst out through you.” It was from this apparition of Christ that the illustration of the Heart itself originated.
So what is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Catholic symbol meant to encapsulate the everlasting love of Christ for humanity, doing next to an American flag in rural Kentucky? Why did it appear in June of 2024? Why did those who select the flags to fly in this location choose this symbol to hoist and not, say, the Christian flag that appears in so many Protestant churches?
To answer such questions, we don’t need to go back to the 12th century or Pope Pius XI. Rather, we only have to go back to early June of 2024 and Martha-Ann Alito, wife of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito. Mrs. Alito was recorded expressing extreme frustration with her Virginian neighbors who were flying an LGBTQ+ Pride flag for Pride month. In the secret recording taken by Lauren Windsor, an American progressive political consultant and self-described “advocacy journalist,” Mrs. Alito said she wanted to fly a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because she had “to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month.” After being told explicitly not to fly the Sacred Heart as a symbolic retort to LGBTQ+ rights advocacy by her husband, she went on to exclaim in the six-minute recording that she wanted to “send them a message every day, maybe every week.” She aimed to do so by “changing the flags,” and even developing her own flag featuring yellow and orange flames emblazoned with the word “Vergogna,” which means “Shame” in Italian.
When the recording of Mrs. Alito reached The New York Times on June 10th, it had an effect on political iconography as a whole, refiguring the meaning of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in popular culture.
Historically, the Sacred Heart of Jesus symbol has traditionally referred to the Catholic tradition of Saint Margaret Mary, her vision of Jesus Christ and the message He had for all of humanity – love one another as much as God loves humanity. However, when Martha-Ann Alito used the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a way to engage in a counterprotest against her neighbors’ pride flag, she effectively shifted the message. That is, instead of serving as a symbol of God’s love for all, she put it to use for the message that God’s love has limits, especially when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community. To Martha Ann-Alito, God’s love does not extend to gender and sexual minority groups, and God frowns on their presumption to celebrate their identities and advocate for their rights.
When Franciscan and Dominican Friars proclaimed that Christ’s heart bled out of love and sacrifice for humanity, they did so with the message of love and compassion for all. To quote John 13:34, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” For centuries, the meaning of the Sacred Heart of Jesus has been about loving one’s neighbor just as God loves humanity–enough even to incarnate and sacrifice His only Son. The Sacred Heart of Jesus was understood by Catholics to embody Christ-like loving.
When Martha-Ann Alito hoisted a flag featuring the Sacred Heart of Jesus in protest of signs celebrating Pride month, she was equating Jesus with her conservative social and political views. The anti-LGBTQ+ movement in the United States is led by evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics. When Mrs. Alito chose the Sacred Heart of Jesus as her response to the Pride flag, she equated this Christian symbol to the message many Americans experience each Sunday in church, a message that says that the expansion of rights to the LGBTQ+ community is something to fear, something to hate.
Mrs. Alito’s usage of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as an anti-Pride symbol combined with her now-public rant against LGBTQ+ people aim, in my opinion, to refigure the symbol from a symbol of God’s universal love to God’s very conditional love. That is to say, for Martha-Ann Alito and her ideological soulmates, the Sacred Heart of Jesus is not about loving or caring for our fellow human beings. Instead, it is but another tool to continue the oppression of a historically marginalized group.
So what we have here is yet another effort by a conservative Christian to turn Jesus’ teachings and the message of love he brought to humanity inside out.
A Civil Rights Pilgrimage
by Br. Thomas Nguyen, G.H.M.
Br. Thomas is a brother of The Glenmary Home Missionaries, a community that ministers to rural populations in the United States. In May Br. Thomas graduated with a M.A. in Pastoral Ministry from the University of Dayton. He currently ministers to the rural people in Williamston, NC. His studies, his missionary experience, and his lived experience as a Vietnamese-American Catholic form his views. As he says, “my missionary bent makes me more sensitive to those who are marginalized in our society. The attacks on Asians during COVID have re-invigorated my zeal to fight for justice, especially racial justice. My goal is to help all people see the fullness of the scriptures which have social and spiritual impact. In order to restore justice and peace at times we have to ‘bust the wall of ignorance.’”
A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity along with other Glenmary students to embark on a Civil Rights pilgrimage. This trip was important for me as a Glenmarian because the core of Glenmary’s mission is reaching out to and working with those people on the margins of society. Fr. William Howard Bishop (the founder of Glenmary) was inspired and had a clear vision of The Good Shepherd. From this he drew inspiration for his missionary group. From the very beginning Glenmary has been dedicated to the 1 percent/ “the lost sheep.”
Due to this, many Glenmarians are concerned for the rights of marginalized people, like immigrants, Catholics (in rural America where Catholics are often a distinct minority), the poor, and others. So it made great sense for us to go on this Civil Rights pilgrimage, given that the Civil Rights Movement was very much motivated by faith, and the result was social and political action.
During this trip we went to many sites that were significant and critical to the fight for civil rights. Rights that all people need and deserve. The fact that African-Americans had to fight for these rights in the first place is, of course, absurd, but that they had to fight for these rights highlighted the racial inequality that was (and in many ways still is) present in America. In going to these sites I learned that the fight was not just for African-Americans but all who step foot on American soil. I came to understand that without this crucial fight, no other minority group would be guaranteed their rights.
This fight “paid for” by innocent lives who were senselessly killed, killings that shed a light on the disgusting truth of racism in America. Probably the site that made an impact on me the most was the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, where four innocent black girls were made martyrs for the cause. Their blood fueled the fight for civil rights especially amongst the African-American community.
It devastates me to see a human person kill another person for the color of their skin, let alone innocent children whose only “crime” was showing up in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can’t imagine how much hate the person had in his heart to commit such an atrocious crime. Racism is evil and intolerable in general, but it sparks a certain indignant anger when one sees innocent blood!
Though the fight against racism has not yet ceased, and possibly never will cease. This trip has added much fuel for me in my fight for justice. Looking at all the victims of lynching, ashes of dead African-Americans that blended into the soil. Innocent people whose only crime was being black! This reminded me of the struggles and sufferings of the black community not just in the past, but in the present. It reminds me as a missioner to the Southern parts of U.S. that racism still exists. In fact, in some counties that we serve, segregation still exists in certain forms.
It reminds me and convicts me to recommit myself to fighting for the gospel values. A gospel that cannot be divorced from the fight for justice!
Evangelicals Already Had the Greatest Story in the World, Until They Revised It
by Rodney Kennedy
Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. He pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton (OH) – which is an American Baptist Church – for 13 years, after which he served as interim pastor of ABC USA churches in Illinois, Kansas, New York, and Pennsylvania. He is now a full-time writer, and lives in Louisiana. His seventh book, Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy, has recently been published. And book #8, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit, will appear soon.
Evangelicals have a powerful story to tell about the relationship between religion and America, but it’s not the one they are telling. God’s people have committed two grievous sins: They have forsaken the story of the church for the politics of lies and violence, and they have written a new false story – a story with more holes in it than a “cracked cistern that can hold no water.”
A Battle of Stories
Humans are the culmination of their stories. Therefore, it is imperative that we tell each other only true stories. This is one reason history matters. Our story gives us our backbone, our spirit, and our soul. The American story has guided us through tremendous triumphs, glaring flaws, world wars, a great depression, an array of rights movements. That story kept us warm on the cold days of defeat. Our sense of identity, our values, and our commitments have been carved out of our stories. The American story has helped us make progress in fulfilling the idealism of the founding fathers that all humans are created equal.
The difficulty with the evangelical version is that it makes the original American story unintelligible. And it is not even a complete story. Mostly it is a choppy, piecemeal story, as the tellers of the revisionist American story have leafed through American history books like biblical literalists piecing together the false narrative of the rapture or condemnations of gays with a few verses of Scripture snatched out of context to force the Bible to align with the story they already embraced.
Politicians like Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, and Marjorie Taylor Greene are opportunistic con artists and hucksters offering maps to “freedom,” hawking road atlases for America. These “Christian nationalists” delineate where we are with a new bravado. Employing a kind of intellectual colonialism, these new cartographers rename entire regions of our experience and annex them to Christianity and nationalism, flattening the world by disenchantment.
The supposed evangelical Christianity of the founding fathers is always a highlight of this tour.
America has many stories told in many voices, not all of them English. No one gets to make up a story to replace the American stories. Stories are meant to be shared so that differences are turned into common core commitments.
But the current evangelical project involves the attempt to produce a people who believe that they should have no story except the single story made up for them by D. James Kennedy, David Barton, and Robert Jeffress. These false prophets have told their people that they get to believe – against all historical evidence – that America was founded as a Christian nation by evangelicals. This is what these false prophets mean by “freedom.”
A central feature of this story they have made up about America is that it involves the effort to wash the American past as pure as snow, without attention to the manifold atrocities of Americans (including evangelical Americans), without any sense of repentance and responsibility. This can’t possibly be a Christian story, can it?
The story that you should have no story except this story produces people like Hawley, who says things such as, ” “Some will say now that I am calling America a Christian nation. And so I am. And some will say I am advocating Christian Nationalism. And so I do.”
The problem is that the Christianity in Christian nationalism is not shaped by the Gospel. And not only does Christian nationalism fail to be Christian; it also fails to be good nationalism.
A Better Story Already Existed
Evangelicals could tell the story of the positive role of religion in modern democratic discourse. While the contributions of religious communities to democratic theory and practice are often minimized, the reality is that religious leaders often inspired democratic reform movements. Historian James Kloppenberg says, “Many partisans of democracy, from unconventionally Christian thinkers such as John Locke and John Adams to champions of the rights of women such as Mary Wollstonecraft and abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass drew inspiration from their religious faith.”
Tell me the story of Christian love and empathy. “Write on my heart every word.”
David Bentley Hart, in Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies, offers evangelicals a much more truthful and stirring account of the influence of Christianity on the world. Hart notes
how enormous a transformation of thought, sensibility, culture, morality, and spiritual imagination Christianity constituted in the age of pagan Rome; the liberation it offered from fatalism, cosmic despair, and the terror of occult agencies; the immense dignity it conferred upon the human person; its subversion of the cruelest aspects of pagan society; its (alas, only partial) demystification of political power; its ability to create moral community where none had existed before; and its elevation of active charity above all other virtues.
Christianity qualifies in every sense as a revolution; a “truly massive and epochal revision of humanity’ prevailing vision of reality.” Evangelicals are part of this great revolution, and should be celebrating it..
“They Shall Know We Are Christians by Our Love!”
The people who would be known by their love have marched across the past twenty centuries with unprecedented and still unmatched moral triumphs. Its care of widows and orphans, its almshouses, hospitals, foundling homes, schools, shelters, relief organizations, soup kitchens, medical missions, charitable aid societies, and so on were not simply expressions of normal human kindness. These accomplishments were connected to the Christian conviction that “Jesus is Lord.” These were the people who turned the world upside down.
As Kloppenberg notes,
There are multiple reasons for taking seriously the role of religion in modern democratic discourse. Historically it is undeniable that the source of the animating ideals of modern democratic movements in the Atlantic world has been the Christian principle of agape, selfless love for all humans because all are created in God’s image, which lies beneath the democratic ethic of reciprocity.
Kloppenberg goes on to point out that “Christian ideas of humility, mercy, forgiveness, and equal respect for other persons form the backdrop against which modern concepts of autonomy and equality emerged, and they remain a crucial part of the cultural inheritance of North Atlantic democratic cultures.”
Evangelicals already possess an eternal, universal value: The Golden Rule. The admonition to treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated yourself dates back at least to the tenth century BCE. Early versions of The Golden Rule appeared in the law codes of the ancient Near East, and the oldest books of the Hebrew Bible contain variants on the theme. Norman Rockwell’s iconic illustration, Golden Rule, hangs in the headquarters of the United Nations. The work—originally presented to the UN in 1985 as a gift on behalf of the United States by then First Lady Nancy Reagan—was restored by Williamstown Art Conservation Center.
This painting acts as a defining trope of what most offends evangelical sensibilities. It flies in the face of the white supremacy that is implied in the notion of Christian nationalism. Pluralism, diversity, multiple races, women, different nationalities: all are part of the story evangelicals are fighting to destroy.
Religious experience has been a constant companion of democracy in America. Democracy requires deliberation, pluralism, and reciprocity. In a democracy, deliberation is central to how American citizens make decisions. Deliberation is required to resolve disputes over values.
A pluralistic society requires rhetorical, public space for the views of others. No one view has the authority to “lord it over” the views of others. Jesus expressly forbade such behavior among his followers:
You know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you, but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave, just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many (Matthew 20:25 – 28).
Democracy operates in a pluralistic society. Good citizens broaden their perspectives instead of narrowing them. In this regard, perhaps the most difficult of the tropes of democracy for evangelicals to practice has become reciprocity, in which all persons are to be treated with respect and their perspectives and aspirations are to be given due consideration.
Instead, the evangelical story created by folks like Barton and Jeffress frames all disagreements as all-or-nothing apocalyptic struggles between good and evil, a story which blinds evangelicals to the reality that negotiation and compromise are at the heart of democracy.
In short, evangelicals have put themselves in the untenable position of fighting against the values of toleration, personal autonomy, individual rights, pluralism, distributive justice, and religious neutrality in the nation.
The false evangelical story – riddled as it is with misinformation, false claims, and outright lies – is not the story of America. No matter how many copies of the Ten Commandments adorn public schools in some of the states, no matter how many Bible courses are offered in public schools, the false evangelical story is not America’s story.
And evangelicals already have a story. A story that they share with other Christian traditions and with the other great religious traditions. The Golden Rule story.
Would that they would abandon their false story.
Buddhism: Treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. (Udana-Varga 5.18)
Christianity: In everything, do to others as you would have them do you; for this is the law and the prophets. (Jesus, Matthew 7:12)
Hinduism: This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you. (Mahabharata 5:1517)
Islam: Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself. (The Prophet Muhammad, Hadith)
Jainism: One should treat all creatures in the world as one would like to be treated. (Mahavira, Sutrakritanga)
Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. (Hillel, Shabbat 31a; Leviticus 19:33-34)
Sikhism: I am a stranger to no one; and no one is a stranger to me. Indeed, I am a friend to all. (Guru Granth Sahib, 1299)
Taoism: Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss. (T’ai Shang Kan Ying P’ien, 213-218)
Zoroastrianism: Do not do unto others whatever is injurious to yourself. (Shayast-na-Shayast, 13.29
Josh Hawley’s Strange New Twist on Christian Nationalism
by Brian Taylor and Jeremy Fuzy
Editor’s Note: Rev. Brian Kaylor is editor of Word&Way, and Dr. Jeremy Fuzy is Word&Way’s digital editor. This post appeared originally in Word&Way’s e-newsletter, A Public Witness, and is reposted here by permission.
“Some will say now that I am calling America a Christian nation. And so I am. And some will say I am advocating Christian Nationalism. And so I do.”
Sen. Josh Hawley made that declaration to applause at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., on Monday (July 8). For those who have followed the Republican senator from Missouri, the idea that he espouses Christian Nationalism wasn’t surprising. He’s written clearly about his belief the U.S. was founded as a “Christian nation.” His campaign is even invoking such ideas in his reelection bid this year. But in the past, he had avoided embracing the “Christian Nationalism” label, even attempting to differentiate his vision from those who have adopted the term. Now, like some other conservative figures, he has embraced Christian Nationalism as a badge of honor.
Best known for his fist pump to the pro-Trump mob outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (before later running away from the crowd as they stormed the building), Hawley is an embodiment of the dangers Christian Nationalism poses to U.S. democracy. So while it’s not surprising to see Hawley again espouse Christian Nationalistic ideas, it is significant he has become only the second member of Congress — after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — to embrace the label.
In addition to helping normalize Christian Nationalism with a senatorial endorsement, Monday’s speech and Hawley’s promotion of it on social media also seems to mark a new tone for him as he prepares to evangelize even more forcefully for transforming the character of the nation. Fist-pumping for Christian Nationalism isn’t just something Hawley does on insurrection mornings.
Hawley’s speech also did something else worth noting: He reframed the debate in economic, class terms. His populist vision of Christian Nationalism might be novel, but also demonstrates a definitional flaw of those pushing the ideology. So this issue of A Public Witness listens to Hawley’s speech to consider how he attempts to rewrite history and redefine Christianity to support his partisan gospel.
Don’t Know Much About History
As Hawley attempted to build a vision of Christian Nationalism, he started with the fall of the Roman Empire. He mentioned that moment led Augustine of Hippo to pen a book reflecting on what happened and defending Christians against the accusation the Empire fell because of the adoption of that faith. Augustine’s famous work, The City of God, detailed a vision of the “City of Man” and the “City of God” to consider how the people of God should engage in earthly kingdoms. But while Augustine insisted Christians as members of God’s city should still engage in their earthly societies and governments, he didn’t cast the eternal “City of God” as synonymous with a “City of Man.” Hawley must’ve missed that point in CliffsNotes.
“His dream became our reality. … We are a nation forged from Augustine’s vision,” Hawley insisted as he framed the U.S. as the embodiment of the “City of God” and cast Augustine as a Christian Nationalist theorist. “His philosophizing actually described an entirely new idea of the nation unknown to the ancient world: a new kind of nationalism, if you like — a Christian Nationalism organized around Christian ideals.”
Others have rejected such a reading that creates what Hawley called “Augustine’s Christian Nationalism.” For instance, Dr. George Lee, a theology professor at Wheaton College in Illinois, argued Augustine offered “insight” into understanding the danger of Christian Nationalism as defined by sociologists like Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry.
“Augustine’s political vision is utterly incompatible with the Christian Nationalism that Whitehead and Perry have analyzed. Unlike Christian Nationalists, Augustine rejects the centrality of any nation to God’s purposes in history,” Lee explained. “Christians must root their history and identity in Scripture as opposed to nationalist myths.”
Yet, for Hawley the Puritans were “practicing Augustinians” who came to create “the City on a Hill” — which in Jesus’s sermon is a phrase referring to followers of God, not members of a nation. Hawley then insisted the Puritans “gave us limited government and liberty of conscience and popular sovereignty.” The idea that the Puritans believed in “liberty of conscience” would come as quite a shock to religious dissenters banished from the colony (like Puritan minister John Wheelwright, Anne Hutchinson, and Roger Williams) or executed (like Mary Dyer, William Robinson, and Marmaduke Stephenson for being Quakers). The Puritans didn’t believe in religious liberty; they created a state that persecuted anyone who stepped outside the official orthodoxy. But for Hawley, the Puritans banishing and executing people because of religious beliefs are the heroes he wants to emulate in government today.
Casting the Puritans as the founders of the American view of church-state relations, Hawley ignored what happened at the actual founding period of the United States as politicians like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and preachers like John Leland and Isaac Backus worked to separate church and state — even undoing the official state church in Massachusetts that the Puritans had set up generations earlier. But with all those pages missing from his history book, Hawley tried to equate the Puritan church-state vision with that of the United States.
“The truth is, Christian Nationalism is not a threat to American democracy. Christian Nationalism founded American democracy,” claimed a man who supported an effort to overturn a democratic election as a violent mob waved Christian flags while storming the Capitol.
Building a Christian Nation
Insisting the U.S. was founded to be a “Christian nation,” Hawley argued that “the great loves that define America” are “work, family, God.” Thus, he called on Republicans — as “a party of a Christian nation” — to push those areas as policies.
“Conservatives must defend our national religion and its role in our national life,” he argued. “They must defend this most fundamental and ancient of moral bonds — as Macaulay put it, “the ashes of [our] fathers, and the temples of [our] God.”
Hawley edited the line from Thomas Babington Macaulay’s poem about a pre-Christian Roman soldier. Not only did he change “his” to “our,” but he changed “gods” to “God.” Like the rest of his historical revision, he baptized the poem to make it support a Christian Nationalist vision it was never intended to back.
With this rewriting of history (and poetry), Hawley wants to remake the U.S. into a “Christian nation.” For him, that means specifically pushing Christian symbols and language in public schools and government to mark this nation as a “Christian nation.” So he called for “prayer in schools” and for lifting up God in public buildings with the national motto.
“Why don’t we take down the trans flag from all of the public buildings over which it’s flying around the world and instead inscribe on every building owned or operated by the federal government, our national motto: ‘In God We Trust,’” he argued. “Our national faith is there on our currency: ‘In God We Trust.’ President Eisenhower summed it up well when he said about that motto back in 1954: “Here is the land of liberty — and the land that lives in respect of the Almighty’s mercy to us.”
What Hawley missed in the history there is that such efforts to mark this nation with that motto didn’t come from the founding era but later by people pushing Christian Nationalism. As documented in Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism, the phrase “In God We Trust” went on coins during the Civil War out of fears God might support the Confederacy since the Confederate Constitution defined the breakaway government as a “Christian” nation. In 1954, the phrase went on a postage stamp — with a ceremony where Eisenhower uttered that line Hawley quoted about the phrase that was not actually the nation’s motto yet. It didn’t become the official motto until 1956 and showed up on paper currency the next year.
Hawley used examples from the 1950s — often called “civil religion” by scholars — to justify his Christian Nationalism today. And while Hawley now attends an evangelical church, he was raised in a United Methodist congregation that is part of the mainline Protestant tradition that created that earlier wave of Christian Nationalism like the motto. It’s exactly the stuff Hawley wants more of now: “We need more civil religion, not less. We need open acknowledgment of the religious heritage and the religious faith that bind Americans one to another.”
Hawley also articulated how this push to make the U.S. a “Christian nation” means some people will be second-class citizens, expected to promote religious ideas that they don’t actually agree with in order to be a good American. He insisted that “whether you are a Christian or not, a person of a different faith or none at all,” all people must work to “recover the principles of our Christian political tradition” because it is “the American tradition” and “it is the Christian tradition of nationalism that unites this country.”
“Work, home, God. These are the things we love together, that sustain our common life together, that make us a nation,” he added. “And this is what Christian Nationalism means, in the truest and deepest sense. Not every citizen of America is a Christian, obviously. Never has been, never will be. But every citizen is heir to the liberties, to the justice, to the common purpose our biblical and Christian tradition gives us.”
He’s not for forced conversions, but he expects everyone to support Christianity in a privileged place in U.S. society and government. If not, he’ll attack you as not just anti-Christian but also anti-American as he did in his speech when he criticized “the Left.”
While the partisanization of Christian Nationalism isn’t unusual, Hawley did offer a novel twist.
From Culture War to Class War
One of the overarching themes of Hawley’s speech is that Christian Nationalism is “not for the rich or for the strong, but for the ‘poor in spirit,’ the common man.” He argued that we are “a nation defined by the dignity of the common man, as given to us in the Christian religion.”
Between discussing how we should be afraid of illegal migrants and college students protesting Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians, Hawley offered a fairly trenchant critique of our current situation: “Our economy has entered a new and decadent Gilded Age, where working-class jobs disappear and working wages erode and working families and neighborhoods fall apart — while denizens of the upper-class live a cloistered life behind gates and private security and woke CEOs rake in millions in pay.”
In order to save the United States from this, Hawley argued, conservatives must start by defending the common man’s religion. This will serve to fight elites and “the Left” who want to silence Christians and preach deliverance from God. He derisively declared, “Diversity, equity, and inclusion are their watchwords, their new holy trinity.”
While Hawley mostly caricatured anyone who is not a conservative Christian Nationalist, he’s unsparing and much more tethered to reality in critiquing the failures of his own party. He argued Republicans are currently too interested in capitalism’s “cold profit” and are “busy tending the dying embers of neoliberalism.”
“Republicans of the Bush-Romney era have championed libertarian economics and corporate interests. Their fusionist faith has become one note: money first, people last. In the name of ‘the market,’ these Republicans cheerleaded for corporate tax cuts,” he argued. “And somewhere along the line, Republicans fell in love with profit at any price. And they seem almost embarrassed that their most committed and reliable voters are people of faith.”
What, then, is his proposed solution to this problem? Republicans must alter their path and put people before money: “In the choice between capital and labor, between money and people, it’s time for Republicans to get back to their Christian and nationalist roots and start prioritizing the working man.”
Hawley drew quotes from pre-Civil Rights Movement Republicans Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt to argue that labor is superior to capital and manhood should come before business. Embracing this will make it possible to take on “woke corporations” through embracing private sector unions. (He made it clear which unions he doesn’t support: “I’m not talking about public sector unions.”)
Equivocating once again between civil religion and Christian Nationalism, he decried experts who have painted religion as divisive and out of bounds within the political sphere. Everyday Americans, he said, share “broad and basic religious convictions: theistic, biblical, Christian.” But it’s not just that he defines non-Christians as not really American; he also defines them as “the elite” instead of “the common man” or “working people” — regardless of their actual economic status.
“Working people believe in God, they read the Bible, they go to church — some often, some not. But they consider themselves in all events members of a Christian nation,” he argued. “The campaign to erase America’s religion from the public square is just class warfare by other means: the elite versus the common man, the atheistic monied class versus America’s working people.”
A Definitional Error
Jesus was indeed particularly concerned with people on society’s margins. But we should treat with skepticism a wealthy and powerful man who grew up as a banker’s son and attended Ivy League schools now claiming to speak for the working class as he tries to climb the political ladder. Even more so when his claims about the religiosity of blue-collar workers conflict with the overwhelming social science data on religion in America.
Ryan Burge, an American Baptist pastor who teaches political science at Eastern Illinois University, has noted that religion in the United States has “become a luxury good” for the middle class — not the working class.
“People with higher levels of education are less likely to identify as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular when it comes to religion,” Burge wrote.
He demonstrated that people with a master’s degree have the highest levels of religious affiliation, while the most likely to be nonreligious are those who didn’t finish high school. And a similar relationship is present when measuring who attends services weekly. Using data from 15 years of the Cooperative Election Study, Burge showed that “the people who are the most likely to attend services this weekend are those with college degrees making $60K-$100K. In other words, middle class professionals.”
This certainly complicates Hawley’s Christian Nationalist narrative of atheist elites versus the religious common man. But ultimately, the argument fails because he makes a simple definitional error.
What the data analyzed by Burge and others demonstrate is the absurdity of taking a category of people organized based on their economic status and then claiming they are instead organized by religion or some other completely different variable. It’s like dividing people up by race and then claiming one group are Christians and the other atheists. Or like dividing people by whether they prefer vanilla or chocolate ice cream and then claiming the two groups were organized according to whether they have a pet or not. Even if there’s some overlap in a Venn diagram, they aren’t synonymous categories. Even if Hawley was right that the working class was more likely to be Christian than wealthier “elites,” it still wouldn’t be a one-to-one association because dividing people by economic class is not the same as grouping them by faith.
This bait-and-switch approach is what all Christian Nationalism does. It might not always be as obvious as with Hawley’s attempt to make religion synonymous with class and anti-Christian Nationalism efforts equal to class warfare. But Christian Nationalism at its core takes a group of people defined by one variable (their national identity) and instead pretends they’re organized according to their religious identity. Such arguments like what Hawley offered aren’t just bad history; they demonstrate a complete misunderstanding of nations, economics, and the Christian faith.
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor & Jeremy Fuzy
Hell: Jesus, the Early Church, and Answers in Genesis
by William Trollinger
And now, the final movement in my “Summer of 2024 Hell Quartet.” (For the first three movements, see: here, here, and here.)
Ken Ham, Martyn Iles, and their compatriots at Answers in Genesis (AiG) are fully committed to promoting the idea that God has created and oversees a Hell that involves torment of billions of individuals for eternity, an idea that has been included in the Faith Statement that all AiG employees and volunteers are required to affirm: “those who have rejected [Christ are condemned] to conscious and everlasting punishment in the lake of fire (hell).”
Not surprisingly, the folks at AiG know very well that many people will be aghast at the idea of a God who is the divine torturer of billions. As AiG contributor Tim Challies observed in an article addressed to fellow fundamentalists, “Would He Condemn People to Eternal Torment?,” “if you haven’t been asked this question, you will.”
According to Challies, the key to answering this question is to look at it “from a different angle – what kind of God would not condemn His enemies to an eternal hell?”
Come again?
Reiterating standard arguments made by fundamentalist and evangelical preachers over the past century, Challies explains why “God’s Eternal Holiness Demands That Hell Be Eternal, Conscious Torment”:
- “The eternal, never-ending nature of the sinner’s punishment is directly related to the infinite and eternal nature of God. When you sin against an infinite God . . . you accrue an infinite debt.”
- “The torments of hell are directly related to the transcendent holiness of God . . . God’s holiness is unable to tolerate anything or anyone that is unholy; His holiness is like a gag reflex that acts out in wrath against all sin.”
- “Those who have sinned consciously must also bear their punishment consciously . . . Justice demands conscious punishment, not mere annihilation of the person or his or her sin.”
If you don’t find Challies’ logic compelling, or even logical, take a look at Doug Frank’s powerful book, A Gentler God, where the author questions the idea of a God who “vomits at the sight of sinful humanity,” and unpacks how fundamentalism and evangelicalism have been warped by holding to this understanding of God.
The Creation Museum and Ark Encounter are all about the “vomiting” God who — necessarily, according to their logic – spews forth the vast majority of human beings into Hell. In that regard, the Museum has a placard in their three-room Jesus exhibit that includes this rebuke from Matthew 25:41: “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Given that the Museum is steeped in culture war rhetoric, it is obvious that it expects that visitors will assume that the list of the “cursed” who are condemned to “everlasting fire” includes evolutionists, those who are LGBTQ, those who are pro-choice, feminists, liberals, and socialists. That is to say, it includes all those who have been condemned by the Christian Right.
But here’s the problem. Even though Matthew 25 is the place in the Gospels where Jesus elaborates on the Last Judgment, the Museum has removed the verses before and after Matthew 25: 41. Here’s the full passage (Matthew 25: 34-45):
Then the king will say to those at this right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.
Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.”
They will also answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or naked or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
This text could not be clearer as to who will be rewarded and who will be punished at the Last Judgment. And it could not be clearer why AiG and the Creation Museum have eliminated these verses. Jesus’ emphasis that whether or not one has cared for “the least of these” determines one’s fate at the Last Judgment absolutely does not square with their culture war rhetoric.
What makes all this so egregious is that it is so contrary to how the early Church understood and made use of Matthew 25 and the Sermon of the Mount. My colleague and good friend, Meghan Henning, pointed out in her brilliant book, Educating Early Christians through the Rhetoric of Hell, that
Parallel to Jesus’ radical ethical demands in the Sermon on the Mount, there are several texts in Matthew that make clear that it is one’s deeds that determine his or her eternal fate. In fact, the culminating message of the “Coming of the Kingdom” discourse (Matt. 24-25) is that those who did not care for the hungry, the stranger, the sick, or the imprisoned would go away into “eternal punishment” whereas those who did would enter into “eternal life.” . . . Matthew’s emphasis on behavior as the criterion for eternal punishment and reward was foundational for early Christian paideia [cultural and ethical education]. For later Christians, Matthean ethical norms would become the “essential law of Christianity” and provide a codified set of rules and expectations that defined the community (168).
Such a different Christianity from that promulgated by AiG and the Christian Right. Alas.
Ignorance is Bliss, or, The Joys of Not Thinking about Those Enduring Eternal Torment
by William Trollinger
A few years ago here at the University of Dayton a very bright evangelical graduate student took my M.A. class on Protestant Christianity. While we devoted some time in this class to the study of evangelicalism, she wanted more, and pitched the idea of doing an independent study with me. As she put it in an email to me, “I would love to get into all the messy stuff that we didn’t get to in class . . . I’ve been going crazy on Netflix watching documentaries like ‘Jesus Camp’ and stuff about Westboro Baptist – probably not good for my soul but sooo interesting.”
Of course, I said yes. I created an independent study course entitled “Contemporary Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism.” And one of the books I assigned was Doug Frank’s masterful and disturbing A Gentler God: Breaking Free of the Almighty in the Company of the Human Jesus.
In Part One of this book Frank “takes a long, hard look at the God who hides within and maintains the institutional structure of evangelical Christianity,” a God who “does not give evidence of a truly loving heart” (22-23). Frank grew up in this world, as did I, and he is right to say that the business of many evangelical sermons is to convince listeners that God loves them while also ready to “send them to the lake of fire.” As Frank puts it,
The “conversion formula” insists, of course, that God devised his plan of salvation because he loves and wants us to be with him forever. It also assures us that God continues to love us even after we reject his plan of salvation. But if we happen to die before we’ve changed our minds, then he sends us to a hell of constant, unbearable pain. This translates as: God shows us his eternal and unconditional love by rejecting us if we reject him – by sentencing us to unspeakable agony and declaring that he has no further interest in us (43).
In an effort to make this point as vivid as possible, many of these sermons and revival messages are quite specific in detailing the stark contrast between what it’s like in hell as opposed to what it’s like in heaven. But taking one step back from these sermons, all sorts of logically and morally troubling features emerge. For example, in analyzing one of Billy Graham’s stock revival messages Frank notes that, in Graham’s telling,
The people in hell are crying [in agony, while] the people in heaven are laughing, as if they are not touched by the agony of the lost, a group that surely includes personal friends or family members (45).
My M.A. student found A Gentler God to be a compelling and extremely unsettling book. We spent a fair amount unpacking what Frank had to say about the God envisioned by evangelicals. Regarding the above observation, I suggested that she check in with the folks in her evangelical Bible study group, asking them if/how, when they are in heaven, they will think of their family members and close friends who are suffering eternal torture in hell. So she did, and her anecdotal report was that
What I’ve heard most often is kind of like the “ignorance is bliss” option. That we know of them, but we are incapable of anything but joy [in heaven]. So I guess that would mean that we don’t think of them?
This is very much in keeping with responses to this question that I have gotten over the years from evangelicals and fundamentalists. And I confess that I have not known what to do with such a response. Your mom or dad or child or sibling or best friend have been condemned to conscious and eternal torment – torture that goes beyond hundreds or thousands or millions or billions of years – and you simply forget about them?
But all this is very much in keeping with Answers in Genesis’ [AiG’s] Ark Encounter. As noted in earlier posts, visitors to the Ark are told that the global Flood killed up to 20 billion people (!), and that this Flood is a sign of what’s ahead for billions of people, who will be condemned to “conscious and everlasting punishment in the lake of fire (hell).” But according to AiG, the Noah family on the Ark ate great food and created art and read books and generally had a great time, oblivious to the slaughter going on outside the boat. Bringing the point home, the Ark has a “keepsake photo” placard near the door that supposedly stands in for the door that God shut and locked before the waters rose.
That is to say, visitors to Ark Encounter are explicitly invited to imagine that they are in heaven, and explicitly invited NOT to think about all those billions who, as they understand it, are condemned to hell. So if, say, mom has to endure horrific torture every moment for the rest of eternity, well, I am in heaven . . . so forget about her!
To be fair, if you believe in this notion of hell, how else could you imagine heaven? What sort of heaven would it be if you had to be thinking of people you loved being tormented forever?
And yet, if we are going to take these notions seriously, isn’t it possible that the truly loving action would be to leave heaven and join – suffer with – those who are suffering in hell?
Talk about radical love.
At Ark Encounter, It’s All About Hell
by William Trollinger
In my last post, I highlighted the ways in which the Noah family featured at the Answers in Genesis (AiG) tourist site, Ark Encounter, bears remarkable similarities to Commandant Höss and his family, who (as dramatized in The Zone of Interest) happily lived in a beautiful house adjacent to Auschwitz. At Ark Encounter, Noah and wife and three sons and their wives are happily and stunningly unconcerned by the fact that, according to AiG, outside the walls of their big boat up to twenty billion people are drowning. And visitors are encouraged to join the Noah family in their moral obliviousness by taking “keepsake photos” at the door that, according to AiG, God shut tight just as the waters were rising and the drowning was commencing.
Of course, Young Earth Creationists (YECs) need the global Flood as their explanation for why the Earth is not ancient, as the year-long Flood created the geological formations (e.g., the Grand Canyon) that make the Earth look old when it isn’t. That is to say, it makes sense why YECs would create a tourist site that highlights the Flood.
But what is not clear is why they need to make the absurd claim that up to twenty billion human beings drowned in this Flood, nor is it clear why (using “artistic license”) they need to create a little family that is so morally vacuous that they can play music, read books, and eat good food in the midst of a divine genocide.
It’s not clear, until one realizes that, when it comes down to it, the message of Ark Encounter is not simply about the global Flood that supposedly proves the YECs to be right. That is to say, the main message of Ark Encounter is not simply about the past. Instead, it is also about the future.
This all becomes clear when one enters the “Fairy Tale Ark” exhibit, where all sorts of Noah’s Ark books are displayed, many or most of which are children’s books. Through a series of placards, visitors are instructed that these books are “deceptively cute” but “destructive,” as they “disorient” the reader, “disregard” God’s Word, “discredit” the Truth, and – in their portrayal of “cute animals and a fun boat ride” – “distort” the message. In short, these books are in the business of “defaming God’s character”:
By treating Noah’s Ark and the Flood as fairy tales rather than sobering reminders of divine judgment on a sin-filled world, these storybooks frequently trivialize the Lord’s righteous and holy character.
In case all of this is too subtle, there is the red-orange serpent looking at you while wrapped around this message:
If I can convince you that the Flood was not real, then I can convince you that Heaven and Hell are not real.
Heaven is an after-thought (at best) at Ark Encounter. The point is Hell. And as the folks at AiG see it, if you have trouble accepting the notion that a “righteous and holy” God drowned up to 20 billion human beings (including children, infants, and the unborn) – if you struggle to wrap your head around this sort of genocidal God – you might also doubt the notion that there is a God who is planning to subject billions of humans to eternal torment. On the other hand, if you believe in the notion that God drowned up to 20 billion human beings (again, including children, infants, and the unborn), then you should have no trouble believing that God is quite capable of consigning billions of human beings “to conscious and everlasting punishment in the lake of fire (hell)” (proposition #45 in the AiG Statement of Faith).
In the end, this is the point of Ark Encounter. And there’s no point in thinking about all those who will be tortured, forever. They deserve it.
(Note: Check out Paul Braterman’s 3 Quarks Daily piece about Ark Encounter, “Toilet Train Your Tyrannosaur.” Yes. Toilet training.)
The Zone of Interest, Auschwitz, and Ark Encounter
by William Trollinger
The Zone of Interest will be on my mind for a long, long time. This powerfully disturbing film about the Holocaust (perhaps the best I have seen) vividly evokes Hannah Arendt’s phrase “the banality of evil” (which she coined in Eichmann in Jerusalem).
Directed by Jonathan Glazer, this 2023 film – which won an Oscar as Best International Feature Film – is a historical drama that is based on a true story, and that is a loose adaptation of Martin Amis’ 2014 novel of the same name. At the center of the film is the Höss family: Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss (played by Christian Friedel), his wife Hedwig (played by Sandra Hüller), and five children. Their residence? “The Zone of Interest,” right next door to the death camp.
Remarkably for a movie about the Holocaust, this film only takes viewers inside the camp once, and we do not see any of the atrocities committed therein. Instead, The Zone of Interest begins with the Höss family luxuriously picnicking by a lake in the summer sunshine. At dark they return to their lovely two-story villa. On the grounds of their estate is a beautiful greenhouse filled with plants, a huge garden, and an adorable little in-ground swimming pool (where we see the children happily splashing). Throughout the film we see various spreads of delicious-looking food, arranged on tables inside and outside the house. Add to all of this numerous shots of beautiful flowers and lots of bird songs in the background.
When Hedwig’s mom comes for a visit, she is blown away by the place: “It is a paradise garden. . . . you have really landed on your feet, my child.” But of course, this “paradise” is adjacent to Auschwitz. And along with the bird songs, we sometimes hear other sounds, including shouts and screams and gunshots (it’s for good reason that The Zone of Interest also received an Oscar for Best Sound). And in the visual background we see the walls around the camp, the security tower, the barbed wire at the top of the walls, and the cremation chimneys, sometimes with fiery smoke emanating forth; at one point the designers of the crematoria meet with Höss to explain how the chimneys successfully alternate burning and cooling (the commandant is duly and coolly impressed). A pile of clothes is brought to the house for the Höss family: Hedwig is particularly thrilled with a fur coat (that needs a little mending), and it takes a few seconds to realize that this coat and the other clothes were taken from Jewish prisoners as they were heading to the gas chambers.
The film’s dramatic “high point” comes when Rudolf informs his wife that he is being transferred from Auschwitz to a new position elsewhere. Hedwig is absolutely furious, and informs Rudolf that while he can go, she and the children are not leaving their house. Why? Because, as she puts it, “this is the life we have always dreamed of living.”
Banality of evil, indeed.
While I was watching this incredible film, I confess that I could not stop thinking about the striking similarities between the Höss family/house in the “Zone of Interest,” and Noah’s family/boat at Ark Encounter.
For those of you who don’t know, Answer in Genesis’ (AiG’s) Ark Encounter is located along I-75 near Williamstown, Kentucky. Featuring a giant replica of what is supposed to be Noah’s Ark, this fundamentalist tourist site commemorates/celebrates the biblical flood that – according to AiG – was an actual global flood that killed all but eight human beings on the planet: Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives.
Taking “artistic license” to a whole new level (as very, very little of this in the Bible), placards accompanying the dioramas of Noah family’s invent personalities and skills for the three sons, and names, personalities, and skills for the sons’ wives. Most striking is the plushness of the living quarters, which include a library, large kitchen, and lots and lots of delicious-looking food.
Life for these eight individuals is very good indeed – a paradise, as it were. And while the Noah family is blissfully reading, making music, creating artwork, eating, and so forth, what is going on outside the boat? Well, according to Ark Encounter, up to twenty billion (!) people were drowning. This includes folks with various disabilities as well as toddlers, infants, newborns, and the unborn. Regarding the latter, it is estimated that at any one time 2% of women are pregnant. So if there were 20 billion people who were drowned, 10 billion of whom were women, then — given that some of the women would be too young to be pregnant — let’s say that (according to Ark logic) 150 million unborn drowned in the Flood — just on the other side of the exterior walls of the Ark.
But like the Höss family, the Noah family is blissfully unconcerned with the horrors of this divine genocide. According to Ark Encounter, the only person on the boat who expresses the slightest concern about the divine slaughter is Japheth’s wife, Rayneh. But according to the placards, her concerns are placated by the fact that since God “gave life, He has the right to take life,” and that all human beings “deserve death and judgment.”
Questions answered! Twenty billion dead – so be it! Meanwhile, Noah cheerily asks his wife (Emzara), “Is dinner ready?”
In contrast with The Zone of Interest, Ark Encounter is quite blatant in encouraging visitors to identify with the comfortably content, albeit morally vacuous (to understate the case), Noah family. Inside the walls of the Ark, visitors can happily and smugly enjoy that they too are safe. To make this point unmistakably obvious, Ark Encounter has positioned a “keepsake photo” placard near the door that they assert God shut and locked before the waters rose, before – to say it again – up to twenty billion people were drowned.
Smile for the camera!
Note: See also The Commandant’s Shadow, a documentary about Höss’ son and grandson and an Auschwitz survivor.
