Thanks for continuing on this journey about Christian nationalism, the worldview that believes in replacing secular democracy with theocracy. Last month we focused on Project 2025, the 900+ page takeover plan by the Heritage Foundation. It turns out their current executive director is a Christian nationalist, so this month’s theme actually interweaves with last month’s theme. The elimination of many federal protections for minorities and for the environment are counter to most religious people’s beliefs but they are in line with Christian nationalism. Which is a real bummer for most of us, because whether we’re religious or not, and even if we’re Christian, that agenda isn’t for us or reflective of our values.
What I’m learning about Christian nationalists these days
I was just reading about a guy named Stephen Wolfe in this larger article about the history and present of Christian nationalism in the US. He’s treated like a philosopher and political analyst, and his most recent book was called “The Case for Christian Nationalism.” In it, he explains we need to get better at being Christian and being a nation. According to the article I read, he’s distrustful of Catholics because they might want to make this a Catholic nation. He believes non-Christians shouldn’t have political equality. He believes “political atheism” should not be considered within the bounds of “acceptable opinion,” and he believes arch-heretics can justifiably be put to death.
Three things I found interesting:
a) He’s a Presbyterian (not an evangelical).
b) He has collaborated Thomas Achord who is on record as a white nationalist. (He said his book shouldn’t be judged by that association but on its own merits.)
c) Stephen Wolfe just recently finished a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University.
That last one is mostly interesting to me because the right has worked so hard to frame elite universities (ivy league schools in particular) as dangerous indoctrinating forces of liberalism. In fact, they generally champion diversity of thought in ways that end up often protecting proponents of white supremacist pseudo-science at least as much as people who believe in the value of equality. (At my current school, one law school professor revels in platforming white supremacists while the school drags out a disciplinary hearing based on years of such behavior, for example.)
So the next time someone tells you about the extreme left-wing inclinations of elite universities, make sure they know Princeton’s funded Christian nationalism because we keep falling prey to the myth that tolerance of intolerant people (as well as bad research) is a necessary component of liberalism.
If you want to learn more about the intersection of white supremacy and Christian nationalism, check out this article from Salon.com.
Historic underpinnings of contemporary Christian nationalism
I grew up thinking that “Under God” was part of the original pledge of allegiance, and probably that the pledge of allegiance was as old as the United States. You may already know Francis Bellamy, a pastor’s kid, wrote the Pledge in 1892 as a way of creating unity in the wake of the Civil War. And you may also know that “Under God” was added in 1954 as a way of distinguishing moral, God-fearing America from the godless Communists.
But if you haven’t heard me talk before about the National Association of Manufacturers and their multi-million-dollar campaign in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s to stop the church from caring about workers, well it turns out our modern-day form of Christian nationalism has a lot to do with the NAM not being able to convince pastors to abandon workers. Kevin Kruse’s book One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America, although Gene Zubovich’s Before the Religious Right really lays out what the faith-labor coalition looked like, and Jonathan Herzog’s The Spiritual-Industrial Complex looks at the role of Eisenhower and others. I also have an article on this for paid subscribers. But here’s the snapshot:
When the Red Scare emerged in the late 1940s, the NAM (and eventually President Eisenhower and others) realized that if they could tie religion to nationalism and nationalism to capitalism, they’d solve the problem of churches making workers’ well-being more important than corporate profit. They realized that pastors cared even more about people being in relationship with God (and people coming to church as the measure of that). So worker justice became connected with godless Communism, and people of faith therefore needed to deeply invest in Americanism, and by the way, Americanism is about individual rights, not collective rights. (Honestly, that part of the history surprised me the most; the Constitution wasn’t always considered almost exclusively about individual rights! That was part of a corporate campaign!)
The NAM, some political leaders, and a handful of rightwing Christians lodged that triumvirate into our brains—faith means America means capitalism—so that we don’t realize it wasn’t always that way, and it doesn’t have to be.
Which ancestors fought back, and keep fighting, against Christian nationalism?
I want to give you some encouragement from ancestors—not mine biologically, and maybe or maybe not yours, but ancestors of the landscape on which we live, and from whom we get to learn.
Native Americans have fought for their religious freedom for centuries in this country in both visible and under-the-radar ways, in treaty negotiations and lobbying for more just laws, and in preserving Indigenous religious practices and hiding them within the Christian practices they had been taught, so that white missionaries wouldn’t know they were preserving ancestral practices.
Native Americans never stopped fighting for the first amendment to apply to them, and in 1978, they won a historic victory with the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. They continue to fight for the honoring of sacred sites and the right to hold their own religious practices.
The injustice is real, the defeats and harm to Indigenous people have been many and have been justified by Christian leaders and language throughout those hundreds of years, and it is worth learning from our landscape ancestors that we fight not just when we think we can win, but when it is the right thing to do, and we don’t stop until we have honored the ancestors and created a healthy culture for our descendants.
For a great reflection from Native peoples on the 40th anniversary of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, check out this piece from Smithsonian Magazine.
OK, last week I had fun finding a cheerful image to share with you, so this week I decided to see what Dal-E could do for us. I had so much trouble getting it to add black and brown stripes to a US flag in pride colors that I tried to be more specific: a US flag in the Philadelphia pride flag colors. (Philly’s thrilled we’re all using it, but they’re the ones who added the black and brown stripes, which I love.) So that’s why, although there aren’t black and brown stripes, there’s a Philadelphia skyline. Thanks, AI!
Wanna do something?
You may know that back in April I attended the second annual Summit for Religious Freedom, courtesy of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. They do some great work, including having a clergy network and grassroots organizing (and great youth fellowships and a new initiative to support attorneys who believe in religious freedom). Check out their activist resources if you’re wanting to get involved in something on the ground!
As always, thanks for subscribing, for sharing, for being a paid member if your finances allow, and for being in this work with me. We need us.
Sandhya