Weekly Roundup: Is There Anything Wrong with Christian Nationalism? (Hint: Yes)
Dan provides a detailed rebuttal to a piece claiming that there the concern about Christian nationalism is an overblown conspiracy by liberals and celebrities. Brad links this to the draconian voter-suppression law signed in Georgia last night. The law was bankrolled by Christian nationalists organizations and is a direct reaction to Black women and POC organizing to flip the state Blue. It even makes it illegal to give people in line to vote a glass of water. Talk about freedom, eh?
They finish the episode by talking about the comically bad arguments against DC statehood and why they reflect the fear of the "wrong kind of person" voting.
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My name is Brad Ranishi, Faculty of Religion, Skidmore College.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center, UCSB, and I am here with my co-host today.
I'm Dan Miller, Associate Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
I feel like we say this every week, Brad, about how sort of tired and run down we are, but I know we are and everybody else is.
So thank you for being here and thank you to everybody, whatever you're doing as you take the time to listen.
You know, I was feeling, I am feeling pretty run down, but last night I really felt alive because Al Mohler of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary decided to come at me on Twitter, so nothing will make you feel more alive than having A Twitter spat with Al Mohler, so I highly recommend it, Dan.
Al Mohler has been the object of my love and affection since I was an undergraduate in college.
I have nothing but love and respect and admiration for Al Mohler.
So in case anybody out there misses the heavy layer of sarcasm, please know that Al Mohler has been one of the banes of my intellectual existence for over 20 years now.
Yeah, we may have to do a whole sort of hagiography of that whole process for you and what that means.
Anyway, we'll think about it.
But let's talk about some things for today.
So we want to talk about is Christian nationalism really that bad?
We're going to talk about that.
We're going to talk about voting in Georgia and how that is an extension of the big lie and falls in line with patterns in American history.
Talk about some comically bad arguments against DC statehood and wrap up with reasons for hope.
So that's what's on the agenda.
Recently, Dan piece out that asks, is Christian nationalism really that bad?
Which again, I think shows us that we've arrived at a place where Christian nationalism is hitting mainstream culture and also evangelical spaces to the point that people are now having to react and sort of It's like when the word cancel culture hit those places.
It's like when the word woke hit those places.
All that stuff.
So, I'm going to throw this to you.
Tell us about the piece and give us some reasons why this piece is pretty misguided.
Yeah, so, you know, it's interesting.
You and I were talking about this the other day, not on the podcast, but separately, that, you know, we started this, you know, two or three years ago, started talking about this and that language of Christian nationalism kind of hadn't gotten sort of the mainstream attention yet.
I know in my own work, I was still sort of reaching for that.
I hadn't fully sort of Conceptualize that and it has sort of taken off.
So it's sort of from both a professional or if you like, like academic analytics side, it's become a thing.
But you're right.
It's making its way into the mainstream.
And we've talked about this a couple of times, right?
With with different people.
But so this was a piece by a guy named Russ Vought.
It was an opinion piece.
I want to be clear, you know, it's his opinion.
It wasn't the official reporting in Newsweek earlier this week.
My quick answer is no, of course not.
As long as you're white and Christian and support patriarchy and you're straight, no, there's nothing wrong with Christian nationalism.
If you happen to be anybody else, or if you're white and straight and Christian and still don't support patriarchy and things like that, then yeah, there's a lot wrong with it.
I could go all day on this thing.
It was a really frustrating thing to read, but I want to highlight just a couple things.
So, I'm going to quote from it here for a minute, and he makes some statements here.
He says, this is how he describes language of Christian nationality.
He says, an academic, often from a theologically liberal persuasion, paints a caricature of Christian nationalism that is clearly outside the lines of Orthodox Christianity.
Celebrity pastors and writers then point to that distorted definition, label any related viewpoints as heresy, and call for all evangelicals to practice discernment or repent of compromising political, excuse me, idolatry.
They point to inappropriate but mostly anomalous displays of Christian symbolism in political settings.
Few pause long enough to consider what millions of Christians might actually mean when they say that America is a, quote, Christian nation or champion viewpoints that accord with traditional nationalist principles.
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