Christian Nationalism Ain't Christian

Well, I think this is where, you know, our work around Christian nationalism actually is really helpful because I think really Trump just kind of pulled back the curtains of something that was always true, that it was about power. It was about getting the person of power who will give us access to power to make, you know, this world look like we hope it will, you know, as we interpret the Bible or think about, you know, the ways that it should look. And so I think that’s. That’s the difference.

Hey, everybody, I’m Dan McClellan.

And I’m Dan Beecher.

And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast, where we seek to increase the public’s access to the academic study of the Bible and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

I’m. Things are great. I am looking forward to today’s show. We’ve got an awesome guest. We’ve got a topic that will anger a whole group of people. So, you know, what could be better?

We’re here for it. Yep. Want to make the people happy, give them what they want.

That’s right.

For a lot of people is anger right now.

Yeah. So why don’t you introduce our guest?

All right, today we’re going to be talking with Andrew Whitehead, who is professor of sociology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Excuse me. So IUPUI, just so we’re all clear on that, Ooey-Pooey if you’re feeling fun, where he co-directs the Association of Religion Data Archives and the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture. Thank you so much for being here with us today, Andrew, and welcome to the Data Over Dogma podcast.

Hey, thanks for having me. I’m really glad to be here with you guys.

Yeah. So the first question, I think is the obvious question, which is, why do you hate Christians?

That’s usually what some folks lead with. Yes. Talking about Christian nationalism, there’s, you know, difficulty disentangling or seeing difference between the two. So, yeah, I have had that question before for sure.

Have you really? Okay, well, I don’t think that you actually do hate Christians, but, yes, your, your, your specialty is in Christian nationalism. Will you give us a little bit of background on, like, how you got into studying that, what your, what your background in it is and and what angle you’re coming at it from?

Yeah, definitely. So I’m a social scientist, so a sociologist, and I specialize in analyzing large survey data of the American public, so more quantitative. And so I got into that because I was just fascinated by religion. Like you both. And how American culture both shapes religion or Christianity. Right. Since that’s the majority of religion here, but then how Christianity has also shaped our culture and history. And so that’s kind of professionally where I come at this. And Christian nationalism was something that, you know, I was interested in now a little over a decade ago when I started studying this, because it really kind of looks at the overlap between both politics and religion. Right. And we know a lot about how politics shapes the way Americans think and also how their personal religious, you know, piety shapes the way they think. And Christian nationalism kind of looks at the overlap of both. And what we found is that it really does explain something above and beyond, like if they’re, you know, Republican or Democrat or if they pray a lot or they don’t affiliate with a religious tradition.

they’re, you know, Republican or Democrat or if they pray a lot or they don’t affiliate with a religious tradition. So professionally, that’s where I come from it at. But then also personally, I grew up in Northern Indiana, really religious area, really religious town and community. And so, you know, growing up, it was kind of taken for granted that the US is a Christian nation and that to be a good American is to be Christian. And to be a good Christian, you know, ideally, you’d be American. And so there was really little, you.

No, don’t tell Jesus.

I know, exactly. Well, he looked like us, for sure.

But I’ve seen the pictures. You’re absolutely right.

Yeah. I mean, my. Yeah. My grandma. And maybe this is true of others. Right. Like that famous Jesus picture of him just kind of looking to the side and flowing hair and very white and. But, yeah, so there was just little difference between the two. But then as I got older and, you know, going to university and grad school, just starting to see some of the cracks. Right. Of. Well, what does that really mean if. If Christians and Americans. Right. You know, should be the same? And so, yeah, that’s kind of where I came at this study, both professionally and personally, too. Just kind of disentangling some of what I’d been handed from. Yeah. Maybe. What. What is more true or should be true now we’re.

One of the things we’re here to talk about is a new book that you just published, American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church, which was a wonderful discussion, where you go a little bit into your own backstory, talking about, for instance, taking mission trips down to Peru where you had allergic reactions and didn’t get to participate as much as you would have liked.

Right.

And things like that. Can you talk a little bit about if you don’t mind your graduate work and that moment of dawning comprehension, because that’s something that a lot of people would love to see more folks who are mired in these ideologies confront and realize there’s something more going on here. What was it that helped you figure out that there was water around you that you were swimming in that you didn’t even realize was there?

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So, you know, I think there’s a number of different moments looking back that kind of served as, you know, almost like pebbles in the shoe, where I just couldn’t quite get past it. Right. And I think, too, that’s why I enjoy, you know, your podcasts and others do, too, where it just provides this different take on it. Right. A slightly different view where now, I don’t know, like, the light is refracted just differently enough where you start to see maybe what is. What else is going on. And so there were different moments. One was, you know, some of the music I listened to growing up where, you know, these were Christian bands, so they were okay for us to listen to, but then they were talking about Native American genocide. And that’s not something that we heard about really, in school very much or especially in church. But it starts to make you think, like, well, yeah, if we were a Christian nation, why were we acting in this way when at church we’re told to love our neighbors, or we would go to these different countries and want to save them. Right. And evangelize.

So there was, you know, those type of moments, or even two, as a freshman at Purdue University, taking an American history course from a specialist in the founding period and hearing him talk about religion and the religion of the Founding Fathers. Right. And what. What it really looked like, because we hear stories of, you know, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. They were evangelical, just like, you know, all of. All of the evangelicals today. And then actually seeing, well, what were they writing, what were they saying? And so those were some different moments. But then I think, too, yeah, in graduate school, being able to look at a lot of the social science around this and as we measure Christian nationalism and then see what it’s associated with, like, for Americans that strongly embrace it, you know, they really embrace a lot of things that, to me, growing up in these kind of Christian spaces really didn’t look like what they were telling us to do or what Jesus was telling us to do or that we were supposed to do.

And so that’s, too, where I started to wonder, you know, exactly what this was. And by, you know, grad school, I had kind of walked away from a lot of that Christian nationalism, but then that kind of helped put a framework around it. And so then with this book, kind of telling both those stories and trying to show that, and it’s written to a Christian audience, so I’m trying to help folks see that you don’t have to necessarily walk away from Christianity. There are expressions of it that confront and oppose this kind of politicized Christian nationalism that only tends to benefit a particular group. So, yeah, to try and provide people that. That way out, because it’s a lot to ask, you know, just walk away from everything. Like they really aren’t going to listen to that. But maybe, you know, we can provide some resources to go elsewhere. So that’s kind of part of that story.

Maybe before we go much further, we should actually stop and define what Christian nationalism is.

We’ve talked about this. You know, I don’t like definitions.

Okay. Maybe we should find ways of discussing it so that we’re all on the same page. Dan?

Yeah, yeah, that’s something that frustrates me about sociology is always wanting to define stuff. I guess there’s. There’s a methodological need there. So.

Yeah, yeah. So that’s where I’ll come from it as. And this is the thing, too, because I totally understand where you’re coming from. Where, you know, that’s the first question I usually get in any interview, right. Is define it. And, you know, there’s folks that maybe are put off by this work or think that we’re, you know, we hate Christianity or whatever else. And, you know, they’ll say, well, we don’t even have a good definition. We don’t even know what it is. But I think, you know, empirically we can come to it and understand these are the things that are associated. What are the different elements of it that kind of give us an outline. Right. And so the way that, you know, through our different studies, we’re able to understand what. What we’re talking about here is a desire for a very particular expression of Christianity to be privileged in public life and for the government to preserve and protect that framework as the organizing framework of the United States. And so I think what’s. What’s helpful there is that the key phrase is the particular expression of Christianity.

So this is a particularly politically and religiously conservative strand. Right. And so a lot of the work that you all do on this podcast and others, like how we interpret the Bible, what is the Bible? What does it mean? You know, how do we… How do we know what they were talking about and saying, you know, this expression of Christianity is going to have very particular views on some of those things that help undergird their vision for what American society should look like or who should truly have access to the benefits of being a citizen. And so I think that’s where the overlap is so important. And understanding what the Bible is, what it means, how we think about it, I think provides really helpful resources too, as kind of an off ramp, whether it’s folks struggling with Christian nationalism as Christians or those who are secular. But they know folks. We all… We’re going to be connected to folks that maybe embrace it. And just having some of those resources, I think are important. So that’s, that’s what we’re talking about when we’re talking about Christian nationalism.

And I know when you were talking earlier about the, the Founding Fathers and something that came into my mind is a painting that I’m sure Dan has seen in, in homes around Utah and probably elsewhere. I know I’ve seen in many places and even in other countries is Washington on his knee at Valley Forge, hands clasped in prayer. I’ve seen giant versions of that painting in, in people’s living rooms. And, and part of this is kind of generating that sense of this is a type of Christianity that we’re about, and it’s tying it into the founding of the nation as a way to try to link our identity now with their identity, then saying we’re part of the same story, the same narrative, and they are just like us. And I think a lot of people, they are sold on that narrative and then are blissfully unaware of the kinds of data that come out of research into things like Christian nationalism.

And I wonder if you could share some of the… Someone who is maybe swimming in those waters. Some of the data points that are more striking when it comes to how different Christian nationalism is from how someone functioning from inside the system might think about it.

Yeah, definitely. So we look at and measure Christian nationalism a number of the things that we find that it’s strongly associated with. One element is a desire for a strict moral hierarchy of who’s at the top in American society, who’s in the middle, who’s at the bottom. And that oftentimes revolves around gender and sexuality. So men and heterosexuality, those are the things that will place you near the top, and then everyone else comes after. And another element is strict ethnoracial boundaries around how we idealize and think about American identity as a nation. But then to a true American, to where essentially this country was, was built and made by and for white Christians essentially, and again with everyone else coming after. And then too, another element is a real comfort with authoritarian social control. So the world is viewed as a chaotic place and sometimes we need strong rules and strong rulers to come in and enforce order.

Kind of like that moral hierarchy or those ethnoracial boundaries, making sure that those are in. And then another element too is kind of this populist impulse of feeling victimized and persecuted by elites, by those with power, and always coming after quote, unquote us. And then moving from there makes folks really kind of open to conspiratorial thinking and again, embracing these explanations of what actually is happening and where we go from there. And that can go towards kind of, you know, straight up conspiracy theory like QAnon or to just how they interpret the Bible or, you know, what we’re going through right now and how they’re viewing any sort of war in the Middle East, right, like the apocalyptic thinking and what all is happening there. And so those elements are all we find playing into this when we measure it. And then beyond that, you know, we could talk about specific kind of views of race and views of immigration or xenophobia and all these other things that it’s strongly connected with.

And again, really it revolves around those elements of enforcing a moral order through the threat or through violence and ethno-racial boundaries and a populist impulse. All those things are at play when we’re looking at what it means for folks.

You know, it occurs to me that it may not be immediately obvious to everyone listening what, what could be the problem with some of those things? Those things, I mean, there may be people listening who think, I believe in a moral hierarchy. I believe in, you know, I, I like the idea of, you know, a top-down authority that, that, that will keep our, our, keep us safe. So, so talk a little bit about why you think this might not be as good a thing as people might think it is.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, and I think this is where, you know, the, the lines of social science and kind of empirical support for what it is then crosses over to normative claims. Right. And so when, you know, for me, as like a human being living in the United States, I come to this and see what it’s associated with. I move beyond the evidence of, well, I know this is what it’s associated with, but whether that’s good or bad, right. Social science wouldn’t have anything to say on that, just that this is the elements that strongly associated with. But I think for me then it’s moving beyond that as like a human being in person, where I think, well, living in a pluralistic, democratic society appeals to me where, you know, certain folks aren’t automatically marginalized or oppressed, even though that is a part of our nation’s history. But, you know, my values and beliefs come to the point where I think, I think it would be better if we allowed folks that have been marginalized to play a part and to have access to the democratic process. And again, again, that’s moving.

That’s me moving beyond, you know, my social scientist hat and putting on my, you know, normative hat of I think this would be better. And so at that point, that’s where, yeah, I kind of leave the evidence. Like, if you think it is better that white people marry white people, I don’t agree with you. But we know that Christian nationalism is associated with more discomfort towards interracial marriage. Right? And that’s again, where that evidence social science hands us. For me, I think, you know, then leads on to where I kind of start to think about, well, is this, is this a country, is this a society that I would want to live in if this really was the organizing framework? But again, I, you know, we have to leave it to folks to make that decision. But I think more and more, as folks see what it is associated with, I think it should become clear that this would be detrimental, right, to, to flourish like other groups flourishing and in being able to take part. But yeah, I can, there’s something, maybe.

You can confirm this or talk about this in a way that, you know, that will sort of. I, I have a sense of, you know, when I was growing up, I remember, you know, I’m 40 something years old, I don’t remember exactly which, but I’m pretty old. And I, I remember growing up America was talked about like I heard phrases like melting pot all the time. I heard like there was this idea was supposed to be lots of people from lots of different areas, you know, parts of the world, different ethnic. Ethnicities and different, you know, and it was supposed to bring them together and we were all supposed to embrace elements of everybody’s background. It doesn’t feel like that’s happening as much anymore. Is, has there been a change since 30 years ago when I was a kid to now, or like, because it feels like it’s different?

Yeah, no, I think it really is. So even if we look at the Republican Party and their platform as one example. Right. So in the 80s, when I was growing up, when we were growing up, how they thought about immigration was actually almost distinctly opposite to how they view it now. And so there has been a change. Right. So Reagan and the first Bush. Right. It was a lot of like that type of language where this is a great country, like people should be coming, and this laissez faire capitalism, like, you know, workers coming, bringing their skill sets. This is great. But that has really changed. And I think the, you know, Obama presidency is a part of that, like activating some of these darker impulses, responding to that. And so we have seen a complete shift to where, you know, kids growing up within white evangelicalism now, I think would have a very different experience than I did growing up in white evangelicalism, where we kind of didn’t really think about immigration that much. It really wasn’t a big issue, whereas now it’s a big issue for those that embrace Christian nationalism.

So I think your sense is correct. I think kind of historically, empirically, we can see that, that difference. Yeah. So where we go from there or what this means broadly going into the future, I think there are obviously implications of that, but I don’t think you’re. Yeah, that, that is a similar experience that I’ve had thinking about the past as well.

I see two trends developing in the last few decades, at least since I’ve been alive. One is that white evangelical Christians are a smaller portion of the population every year. And you talk a bit about, in, in the book, you have a chapter on this fear of, of losing access to power. And, and you also talk, talk briefly about something that I’ve, I’ve studied a little bit on my own, related to some of the right-wing authoritarian ideologies that have become central identity markers to Christian nationalism these days, thanks to folks like Falwell and Weyrich and others in the 70s. And you talk about how a lot of this is, if not directly in response to, at least facilitated by concern for, well, the, the rulings regarding race in American universities and things like that. I know Bob Jones University and Jerry Falwell, and they went on campaigns around the country to try to convince Christians to get into politics, basically gin up a religious right, because they wanted to try to put a stop to attempts to make them admit black students to their universities.

Is this, this fear, is this part of the same kind of trajectory, do you think that started back in the early 70s, or, or do you think this is something broader than that?

Yeah, I think a lot of what we’re living through right now thinking about Christian nationalism and white evangelicalism and a lot of kind of the cultural work that’s happening around that really is in response to and is kind of like a direct descendant of the rise of the Moral Majority and the Religious Right in the 70s and 80s as they were responding to the cultural upheaval of the 60s, whether it’s the civil rights movement or the women’s movement or, you know, sexuality and those norms. And so I think a lot of what we see today really is kind of the. The aftereffects and the continuation of that work. And so if we want to look to, you know, at 2016 and Trump, some would say, oh, wow, he, you know, was kind of this surprise. And for most folks looking at it historically, right. He is kind of the natural endpoint of all that work in the 70s and 80s, where it really is about fear and fear of the changing ground around us, quote, unquote, us, right.

That this country is growing more diverse, both religiously, racially, and ethnically. And then, you know, with that, fear is so powerful as a political motivator because, you know, as you said, most white evangelicals weren’t actively involved in politics. It was a pretty dormant voting bloc, but they were able to get them in and voting in a particular way. And it’s only continued, you know, even with 2016 and 2020. Those are the highest numbers of white evangelicals voting for Republicans ever. And so they are solidly within that camp. And so I think, yeah, that political work by those operatives has paid off and, and has aligned these groups almost identically. And fear and fear of losing privileged access to power is a key part of that.

One of the things that really surprised me with, especially with the first Trump campaign, was that he kept showing himself to be something that seemed in opposition to, to what you would imagine this sort of, this Christian populace.

Right.

You know, this, this is the. Grab them by the pussy candidate. You know what I mean? This is. Yeah, this is not who I would have imagined evangelical Christianity rallying around.

He.

He says he’s Christian, but, like, we don’t see any. Like, up until his run for office, I never saw anything that indicated any kind of Christianity to me in him. He didn’t regularly attend church. He didn’t. You know, there was. He, you know, he would say Two Corinthians. He didn’t know how we talk about the Bible. You know what I mean? So, so how do we explain that, the embrace of a man who very much seemed anathema to Christianity?

Yeah, well, I think this is where, you know, our work around Christian nationalism actually is really helpful because, you know, it isn’t as though Trump was the first Republican candidate that used religious rhetoric. Right. Or talked about, you know, we’re going to ensure that this country, you know, is aligning with God’s purposes and whether that’s, you know, pro-life or whatever else. Right. He. He was falling right into line with past Republican presidents. But I think he provided the perfect test of the power of this Christian nationalist rhetoric because he personally and individually, as you’re pointing out, didn’t really claim or care to, you know, externally align with Christian piety as we broadly might understand it or as past presidents understood it and said and talked about it. Right. So he really was kind of the perfect test of if you promise this group power. Right. And Christian nationalism is focused on privileged access to power within the culture.

If you promise them power, will they align with you, even if you aren’t necessarily religious? Like, they would say, oh, this is a, you know, a moral, upstanding Christian we need to put into power. And he. He wasn’t. And. And they did. Right. Like, they fell into line. And there’s a great data point where, you know, a decade earlier, asking white evangelicals, you know, does a leader need to be moral in order to lead well? And it was like, 70% said yes, 30% said no. And this is really in response to the Clinton years, right? Like, he was, you know, kind of this… this guy in the White House and really immoral. He needs to get out of there. That was a lot of the talk. Well, then that same question is asked when Trump was a candidate president, and it was a complete flip. President, and it was a complete flip. Now, white evangelicals, 70% said, no, you don’t need to be moral, you don’t need to be upstanding to be a good political leader. And so it was a, I think, really, Trump just kind of pulled back the curtains of something that was always true, that it was about power and access to privileged political power.

That was the goal. It wasn’t getting the right people in power, although you’ll still hear that narrative. It was about getting the person of power who will give us access to power to make, you know, this world look like we hope it will, you know, as we interpret the Bible or think about, you know, the ways that it should look. And so I think that’s. That’s the difference.

You say give us access. It also seems very clear that it’s not just about giving us access, it’s about denying them access.

Yes.

Denying power to them. And it feels like us versus them becomes incredibly important in this discussion.

It does. I think you’re exactly right. It draws very strict boundaries around who has access to the democratic process. And honestly, it is a threat to democracy. Right. This idea that we will respect our political opponents, play by the same rules, use at least similar sources of information to make good faith arguments about the way we think things should operate. So thinking about the guardrails of democracy, like in the book How Democracies Die, right, Christian nationalism is opposed to that because again, it, it has a particular vision. And if you believe God has given you, this group, a vision for what this world should look like, if democracy stands in the way, then do away with it. Like, why would we go against what God wants just because we value democracy? And I think that’s the calculus, right? That’s the logic that we know what this world needs to look like to flourish and we will impose that. And it’s a zero-sum game, as you’re pointing out.

Like, we need power to do that and you can’t have it if we’re going to do what we need to do.

Dan, I wonder if you and Andrew could have a conversation. I’m not, I’m, I’m going to ask for a conversation that I’m not versed enough in to actually be useful for. But I want to talk a little bit, since our show’s about the Bible, about Bible verses that, that Christian nationalists run to, about Bible ideas and stories. I know one thing I’ll say is that like for instance, I saw in the evolution of Donald Trump when, when Trump first started to run, before some controversial things came up, I saw Christians talking about him and calling him David. And then, and then when more controversial stuff came up, suddenly they were calling him. What is it, Cyrus, who’s. It was the, the king. The king who’s not one of us, but, but nevertheless enacts good things or.

He’s called the Messiah in Isaiah.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Okay. Well, there you go. So, so yeah, talk a little bit, the two of you, about sort of what you see the biblical justifications for that perspective being used and, and how valid is their argument.

And I think that’s a great discussion. From my perspective as a biblical scholar and a cognitive scientist of religion, I am really interested in the way that we negotiate with the texts because the texts have no inherent meaning. They mean whatever we agree they mean. And there’s a lot of renegotiating going on in order to make the text serve our interest. Just like this discussion about Donald Trump. I remember Clinton and the Lewinsky affair and everyone saying, if he cheats on his wife, he will cheat on the country. That was the foundation of conservative opposition to Bill Clinton. And I wonder where all those people went. There are certainly many of them still alive in 2016 who all of a sudden were saying, we’re electing a leader, not a pastor.

Yeah, right.

That was the refrain I kept hearing. And it’s so remarkable within just a couple of decades to have what is considered a central identity marker be negotiated away so thoroughly. And the same can happen with the Bible. And you talk quite a bit about a number of passages in your book from the. From the Bible that seem to conflict with some of the directions that Christian nationalists are wanting to go and some of the ideologies. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have passages to which they appeal to support their ideologies. What are some that you have come across the most frequently in your research?

Yeah, well, this is what I was excited about, too, is, you know, getting some of these verses out there and letting Dan cook a little bit with what we’re talking about. So one, one big one. Right. And so post-9/11, this was everywhere. And I think, too, that was obviously a really big pivotal moment in kind of how Christian nationalism operates in the US but we still see this today, and I think it really does undergird a lot of, kind of the cultural framework itself. So it’s second Chronicles 7:14. And in this version, it says, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. And so.

Oh, heal their land. That’s a. That’s a big one right there.

Yeah, that’s a big one. So, yeah, I was wondering too, like, okay, so how. How do you come to that? What’s the way that we can understand that? And two, in responding to those around us who might use that verse, because I still see it used by folks that embrace Christian nationalism today.

This is an interesting one. The books of Chronicles come from the exilic, post-exilic period. And I think one of the most important parts of understanding what’s going on in any biblical text is first trying to figure out who’s writing it, when they’re writing, why they’re writing, writing to whom they are writing, because that helps us understand why they’re saying what they’re saying. And this is something that a lot of I’m sure Christian nationalists, at least a lot of conservative Christians are used to doing when it’s something that they don’t like in the text, where they contextualize it away, where they say, oh well, in this time period this was going on, so slavery was everywhere and God, you know, had to play the game. So, you know, you’ve got this explicit endorsement of chattel slavery in Leviticus, but we don’t need to deal with that anymore. And when you look at 2nd Chronicles, I mean even the verse before 7:13, it talks about God shutting up the heavens so that there’s no rain, so that locusts devour the land, send pestilence among my people.

This is kind of a, a stereotypical punishment from the storm deity, from the weather God. I’m going to send famine, I’m going to send drought in order to punish you. And this is one of the ways anciently that they would account for crises that they were experiencing, whether it was drought, famine, or being defeated by another nation, being subjected to a vassal state or something like that. It was never that the other God won. Well, almost never. One time it was that the other God won. But in the Bible, most of the time it’s that, oh, God is angry with us and so God is punishing us. is angry with us and so God is punishing us. And so when we get to verse 14, the idea is that we’ve got to repent and turn back to God and stop worshiping the other gods. That’s usually the biggest problem and particularly here with Solomon, as Solomon had too many wives. It wasn’t that you were only allowed one, or a bunch of wives, but Solomon just had too many.

700 is pushing it.

Yeah, overdoing it just a skosh. And so he starts worshiping the, the gods of these, these foreign wives and things like that. And so idolatry always seems to be at the root of whatever’s going on here. And so we have the statement and I’ll read from the— Well, you, you already read it. But in the NRSV, “the people called by my name,” which would be the Israelites, the people of Adonai, “pray, seek my face.” Which is an interesting reference to a commandment that the Israelites are given to see the face of God three times a year, or at least the male Israelites are given that commandment. God will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and heal the land. Here is a reference to opening up the heavens, ending the drought, ending the famine, and restoring the natural order the way things are supposed to be, the cosmic order. I don’t understand how this is appealed to as anything other than a reference to ancient punishment, using drought and things like that.

I mean, to—it’s, it’s common for people to proof-text by wrenching things from their context. And you talk in your, in your book about how Christian nationalism is in many ways promoting idolatry because it is seeking after power. It is putting something before its commitment to God, to Jesus, and specifically this access to power. And so there could be, there’s an argument to make that the problems are being caused by Christian nationalism engaging in idolatry by putting its access to power ahead of what God expects. And so this verse could be turned around on Christian nationalists to say you need to humble yourselves, you need to seek God’s face.

And then you should put that as the title of your book or something.

Yeah, and, and you know, maybe “healing the land” is, is going to be more democracy and maybe less fewer people upset about a pluralistic society. But yeah, the notion that this is, is utilitarian for Christian nationalists just baffles me.

Well, it is. What’s, what’s interesting about that verse is that it is kind of like if you, if you do take it out of the context and just say that this can be applied however I want to. Yeah, it’s a remarkably generic verse. It doesn’t say much of anything, so they can just use it to mean whatever it is they decide it’s going to mean. And, and, and also I think generic language actually helps them because I think, I think when we’re talking about Christian nationalism, they often use, they often have to use dog-whistle level things because they know that the racism that’s inherent in their movement is not going to fly. They know that the, the, you know, the, the ethnocentricities, the, the, the, their insular, the, the insular nature of what they’re saying. If they say it too overtly, it becomes something that, that people who wouldn’t normally notice would suddenly get upset about.

So it does seem to me, and you tell me Andrew, if this is true, but it seems like they use purposefully a lot of very sort of generic language to mask some of the more what I would call nefarious angles of their movement.

Yeah, no, I think, I think that’s right on. And with what both of you are saying and I think what’s, what can be so fascinating too is this kind of whether it’s, you know, ignorance and not just knowing it—and not ignorance in like a derogatory way, but just like not aware of it or. Or aware of it and then actively just ignoring it and not wanting to own up to it. But this idea that there are various expressions of the Christian faith, that all of them come with cultural baggage, you could say. baggage, you could say. And so Christian nationalism is one of those, and, you know, progressive or whatever types of expressions of Christianity have cultural baggage, too. And I think that a verse like this, as you’re saying, is so useful because if we talk about wickedness, right, it has wicked ways in there or what sin is, right? All of those, as, you know, you know, you all point out over and over, those are culturally determined, right? They are going to come to those things with visions of what that means.

So is wicked ways and sin is that, you know, looking back at Hurricane Katrina and, you know, Robertson, Pat Robertson going on and saying, well, it’s because of the voodoo and, you know, homosexuality. That’s why this hurricane came. Or is wicked ways and sin? You know, this kind of rampant capitalism where we have, you know, kids going hungry at school, well, that seems wicked, too. But. But one of those, this group will say is wicked and sin, and another, they won’t. And so, you know, I’ll have interactions with some folks on Twitter sometimes where, you know, visions of. Of kind of what they say is wickedness or sin, they’re like, well, this is just Christianity, right? This is just 2000 years of orthodox Christianity, and that’s it. Even though, you know, like, the word homosexuality is relatively recent and, you know, and all of that is just completely ignored or missed. And so, yeah, I agree with this type of verse.

It just allows for that cultural baggage to stay hidden, right? And looked at and argued that, well, this is just what Christians have always believed. Believed, right? We’re just bringing this faith, just this Christianity, pure and true to this present day.

There’s a. And something that. A conversation that I was engaging on Twitter recently kind of reminds me, Dan, of your point about how there’s a lot going on under the surface that is making use of rather generic terminology and themes. Someone posted a photograph of eight or nine white men who were dressed up in military gear, and they were a part of a group that had its own name, had its own patches, had its own flag, and they were engaged in paramilitary training. And they said that this group was going to play a role as the world prepares for the second coming of Jesus. And I referred to this as a dangerously ignorant level of dogmatism. And I, and I got that, that basic response was that, what’s wrong with this specifically? And it’s like, well, tell me who, you know, what this role is that you’re going to play. It’s like, oh, we’re protecting our families. You don’t go to paramilitary training to learn how to protect your own family.

Who is the enemy you’re preparing to fight? And I never got a straight answer. It was always dodging because I think they know what the answer is and I think they know everybody else can tell what the answer is. But that gives away the store for them to acknowledge that, that this is right wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation and Christian nationalism. That was, that was something that was, they were going to feign ignorance, openly feign ignorance rather than acknowledge that reality.

I wonder if we could put all of this into an international context because so far we’ve been talking about a sort of American Christian nationalism. But it occurs to me that it’s not a far cry from, you know, from, from what we see in, in, you know, heavily Muslim countries or, you know, Narendra Modi and, and, and, and the Hindu nationalism of that’s currently taking over in India. And it seems like the same, is it the same types of problems? Are there, are there fundamental differences between American Christian nationalism and what we see with other religions and other nations or, you know, talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, yeah. There’s nothing really unique about Christianity as a world religion that is associated with, with nationalism and this type of kind of obsession with political power and cultural power and also nothing really unique about the United States. So as we look at.

How dare you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Other countries are good at this too. Where I think, yeah, the majority world religion there, it’s so easily kind of intertwined with those that are seeking for political power. And it makes sense, right, that well, hey, God or the gods want us, you know, to be in power so that this nation is the way that it should be. And if that kind of language resonates with the folks around you, it’s incredibly powerful and folks will fall in line. And so, you know, an interesting test of that is, and there was an article written in Slate, Molly Olmstead, where she was looking at Vivek Ramaswamy and how he is Hindu, but he was appealing to Christian nationalism as a Hindu. Right. But yes, we need to embrace Christian nationalism here. And so it’s this interesting test of, you know, he personally again isn’t Christian. Right. But appealing to this narrative. And so, yeah, as we look at the United States and Christian nationalism, that’s just kind of the flavor that we have here.

But it does exist elsewhere. And it has existed for Christianity and other nations throughout history. Right. Since. Since Christianity came on the scene and kind of finally got to that point of political power. So, yeah, I think you’re right on. It’s these types of the rhetoric and the social mechanisms of how it serves these groups exist, you know, outside of a particular country or religion. We see it happening across the globe.

And throughout history, and it’s really kind of innate to the human experience and human cognition. In cognitive science of religion, we talk about this a lot and how even the category religion is kind of an artificial boundary where these features, the in-group, out-group dynamics and our concern to protect the social identities that are important to us and seek to advance their interests, that occurs within and outside of religion. And I think it’s helpful. You mentioned a Hindu promoting Christian nationalism. A lot of people don’t like to distinguish an individual from the system within which they function and operate and from which they benefit. And you can have people benefiting from systems that are designed to benefit another group. That kind of thing happens all the time. And I think this is one of the ways that a lot of folks mask what’s going on, because they don’t individually feel like this is a problem of theirs, even if they are serving a system that collectively is advancing those very interests.

And I think that’s such an important thing that sociology does, is tries to identify where systems are operating. And some people may be seeking to benefit from systems unconsciously, not aware of what they’re doing, which is why it’s so important that people become aware that Christian nationalism is a thing.

Yeah, yeah.

What’s another passage?

Oh, yeah, I’ve got another one for you. I’ve got another one. We’re going to hop to the New Testament now. So Romans 13:1 . And this has a really, you know, a great example of what’s going on here. So this passage, at least the translation, actually, I didn’t write down the exact translation, but I’ll let you, you know, use the one that you want. But essentially saying, you know, let. essentially saying, you know, let—Paul is writing, let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. And so the backstory to this is during the Trump administration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, when they were talking about border policies of what they would do with folks that were coming across the border undocumented, where they would go, how they were housed, right. That was obviously a big issue. And he essentially, in a press conference, literally appealed to Romans 13:1 , and essentially was saying, hey, you need to all be subject to the governing authorities.

We are the governing authorities. And that should be it. Right. And so, yes, that is one that you see. And, and two, I guess we can circle back to when they would say Romans 13:1 is usually when they’re in power and when they’re not going to use it. But, yeah, that’s another one that you’ll hear. So I’m wondering, yeah, what, what do we do with that?

Well, and, and again, we, we’ve got to situate this within Paul. Paul is writing to Romans, so writing to people who are participants in the Roman Empire. And some of them probably have access to, to different kinds of power and authority. So they are probably some of these authorities among them. And what a lot of people refuse to do when they’re reading Paul is understand that Paul is writing to a group of people with the understanding that the second coming is imminent, that it is going to happen within their lifetimes, that the time is short. So much so that he says, a rule I lay down in every single congregation is that you stay in the circumstances you were in when God called you. We don’t have time for anything else, basically. And so Paul is not laying. This is not. This is not a decree for all time and in all places. Paul is referring to a specific authority, and he’s writing to the people who represent that authority, saying, we should be subject to these specific people.

However, they’re really under God’s supervision. And this is a way to say, don’t worry about the Romans. God is in charge, but we’re going to be good citizens or we’re going to be good servants of the Roman Empire. And the notion that this is something that can be generalized and universalized and is something that holds in all times and in all places is clearly precluded by the activity of the folks who appealed to it themselves. I mean, January 6th was not an example of being subject to the governing authorities. The American Revolution was not an example of being subject to the governing authorities. The Exodus was not an example of being subject to the governing authorities. The notion that this can be wrenched not only out of context, but out of the rhetorical context that it is mired in is just ridiculous.

Well, if you talk to anyone who appealed to that particular thing during the Trump administration, shouldn’t that mean that they have to also believe it during a Biden administration? Like, it seems like the picking and choosing is pretty extreme by that point.

Well, and, and here’s the thing—this is something that I’ve said for many years now. There’s no such thing as a biblical literalist. They do not exist, period. Never has been one, because it’s impossible. Not only does the text contradict itself over and over again, but people are in different circumstances when they approach the text and the texts are going to be useful and meaningful to them when they’re being interpreted in different ways. And so what they tend to be literal about is their own dogmas. And in the case of Christian nationalism, they’re going to read the text in whatever way serves their structuring of power and serves their ability to maximize their access to that power. And so if it means you have to interpret this one over here figuratively, you have to interpret this one over here literally today, but tomorrow figuratively, and this one over here, you have to ignore, that’s what’s going to happen because the priority is that access to power. And anybody who, who says otherwise is selling you something because the.

There are so many passages in the Bible that just make people uncomfortable and they’re not going to acknowledge that they say what they say. We’ve, and we’ve brought it up on this podcast before, for instance, where God says, sacrifice your firstborn child to me. Right, that one real quick. Yeah, yeah, they got uncomfortable with. So. And you know the. In the same chapter you have. In fact, I think it’s just the verse before, do not revile the gods. That’s an odd thing for God to say in the book of Exodus . But yeah, this, this is something that is. Will set me off very easily.

All right, well, all right, I. Andrew, you have convinced me. I don’t think that I like Christian nationalism. I don’t feel that. I think it’s a good idea. Like I was telling Dan earlier, I was, I was, I was looking at a Twitter thread. Apparently we’re all still on Twitter. I don’t know why that’s happening, but I was looking at a Twitter thread the other day and saw Christian nationalists embracing that moniker. And like, it used to be like, if you called someone a Christian nationalist, even if they were one, they would take offense. No, that’s not what I am now. Some of them are owning it and being like, hey, why are you down on CN? CN’s cool man, blah, blah, blah.

So there was even a book, The Case for Christian Nationalism. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Check out my new tattoo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So what, what do we do? What’s, what’s the counter here? What’s what’s the way that we can sort of wrench back a little bit of. A little bit of that time of yore when we actually thought that everybody, you know, when we were moving toward racial acceptance and cultural inclusion.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you know, I think that’s a really interesting kind of change that we’ve seen even over the last five years, right? And so, you know, the work, you know, even on y’all’s podcasts, where you talk about rhetorical moves that people make, so this adoption of the moniker Christian nationalist, Christian nationalists, right, it’s. It’s a move to essentially try to redefine what the term is, and it’s kind of a power play, right? Because if you can say, well, this is what it means, and this is what I’m saying, I just love America, right? So that’s all Christian nationalism is, I just love America, then they’re able to really kind of ignore, you know, some of the evidence that we or others are pointing out.

And.

And I always like to say, too, that I always like to talk in terms of. Of Christian nationalism. So the cultural framework, rather than labeling folks, because you don’t want to essentialize people, right, that they’re just this and that’s it or whatever. And we know, too, with our studies that there’s a range of acceptance, right? Some folks embrace it strongly, others are kind of in the middle, and that matters, right, how strongly they embrace it. But for those folks that are saying, well, this is what it means, and we just adopt this label or trying to. To change kind of the definition of it or ignore the empirical research, I think there’s a number of things to do off the bat. And one is thinking about the country that we live in and the political process we’re a part of, or at least that the country has aspired to. So we’re actually a really young democracy. So it wasn’t until the 60s where we literally kind of allowed everyone, for the most part, to take part. And so that’s not very long ago.

And so it is actually a really short experiment. And a lot of the moves being made by those folks who embrace Christian nationalism or otherwise is to, again, define out of kind of existence those who can take part in democracy. So I think one way to counter or to push back is to try and keep track of where are voting rights being limited, right? Where are groups trying to keep others from taking part in American democracy? So at the state level, community level, whatever else, this could again, you know, extend to, you know, what. What books are being banned in your community, right? And being a part of that discussion and why, right? What, what does this serve? So I, I recently just, you know, created a four part podcast series about Christian nationalism. And the last episode is looking at folks who are kind of on the front lines, right? They’re citizens, they’re just in their communities and they see this stuff happening and they’re like, well, what do we do?

And it tells the story of one couple in Texas who literally just started showing up, right? And just kind of raising the concern or voice of why are we doing this, right. Why are we trying to ban this book or why are we trying to only limit who can take part to these, you know, certain groups and certain Christians, right? Not all Christians, but a particular type. And so I think for, for people that want to, to see and learn more, showing up and raising a voice and at least showing that, you know, this isn’t something that we want to take place or be a part of, that helps make space for others then to also recognize this doesn’t represent the country that I want to be a part of or the community I want to be a part of. So I think that’s really important. And that’s kind like at the front edge of this, right. Democracy really is being attacked in various ways, whether it’s January 6th and like literal attacks or the more kind of nefarious and hidden, but ultimately more powerful just suppressing the vote, right? Like, it’s not on accident that I can go and vote on election day and it takes me 20 minutes.

And then there’s some counties in, you know, more urban areas, largely black populations, where it takes three, four hours, right? That’s not, that’s not by accident. That’s on purpose.

And so we have mail-in voting here in Utah. We have for years. And now they’re, they’re just starting to say maybe this isn’t a good idea about mail-in voting.

So, yeah, yeah, so all those efforts, right, to suppress. And we see that historically, like Paul Weyrich was a person central to the religious right and, you know, explicitly said in 1980, like, we don’t want the voting population to go up. Like, the fewer people that vote, the better we do. And so that’s been a part of the plan. And so I think recognizing that whether you’re a Christian, religious minority, whether you’re secular, right, that’s something that if we want to live in a pluralistic, democratic society, we have to be aware of. But then I think beyond that kind of the long game, which we need to attend to. But if we only focus on this, democracy is probably going to slide away. So we got to keep our eye on the ball there. But I think the long game is too, for those who are secular, religious minority or have left Christianity, learning how to help folks disentangle Christianity from Christian nationalism, that there is a difference, there are expressions of Christianity they can move toward that don’t embrace this cultural framework of power and fear and violence, and how that moves on from there.

But then especially for Christians, I think that work has to take place. So for me, I still identify as a Christian, I think while that type of discussion is going to happen kind of between and among Christians, it’s still important for Christians to speak up and say there are different expressions. This, we should be moving in this direction, not embracing this cultural framework that has marginalized and oppressed people. And we need to listen to those voices, right? Those folks that have been on the margins or marginalized. You’re trying to tell us this country doesn’t work for me like it works for you. And I think Christians should care about that. But I think that’s work that has to happen as well. So there’s kind of a short and long game as I think about it. And so being able to do both, hopefully we can. But it does take folks just starting to learn more and starting to kind of be a part of those discussions in the broader public.

I think that’s a wonderful message and I think you’ve done a wonderful job in American Idolatry of getting that message across to those who are part of the in-group, who are Christians, who maybe are outside Christian nationalism or maybe who are departing from it or becoming suspicious of the motivations of Christian nationalism. And that book’s available now. If you’re interested in hearing more about this discussion, highly recommend checking that book out as well as if you’re interested in the more academic side of Christian nationalism. You and Sam Perry, who is another wonderful sociologist dealing with Christian nationalism, published Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States back in 2020. And another wonderful book that is critical if you want to draw a bead on what’s going on with Christian nationalism.

Well, Andrew Whitehead, it is—this has been a wonderful discussion. You’re going to stick around so our patrons will get a little bit more of you. I think that’s wonderful. Thank you so much for that. If our listeners want to find more of you, you mentioned a podcast, talk about where people can go to seek you out.

Yeah, definitely appreciate that. So I’m trying to, you know, find the exit strategy for Twitter because I think it really has just kind of changed and evolved. So, you know, I’m still there now kind of lurking, but usually just pointing to other stuff. So they can still find me on there. But on Instagram, just started a Substack, Andrew Whitehead Substack. And then the podcast is American Idols. And so I recorded this and Brad Onishi, who does the Straight White American Jesus podcast, helped produce it. And so yeah, it’s a four-part series and I think really helpful in breaking down what Christian nationalism is, the threat it poses to democracy, the threat it poses to American Christianity. And then what do we do now? Where do we go from here? So hopefully that can help serve folks. So yeah, love to keep having the conversation. So thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you.

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