Brad discusses a new article at WaPo on the Trumpism and Christian nationalism of non-denominational churches.
He points out that this is not a new phenomenon to anyone who has been paying attention
He points out that the identity of non-denominational Christian might replace the Evangelical identity for some people--which helps make sense of recent data on a decline in Evangelical numbers across the country
He spends the bulk of the episode explaining how non-denominational churches are ripe for political mobilization because they have removed all guard rails. As independent churches with no larger affiliations, they open an authority vacuum for toxic political personalities and movements to take hold of their community. Thus, it's no coincidence that Trump spent significant time courting non-denominational Christians and why these churches are at the heart of MAGA Nation.
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What's up y'all?
Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center at UCSB.
I want to talk about non-denominational churches today and why they are scary to me, just to put it frankly.
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All right, let's talk about non-denominational churches.
There's a recent post by Stephanie McCrummon at the Washington Post on July 11th, and as usual, I appreciate when the mainstream media and legacy publications like WAPO cover things like white Christian nationalism and white evangelicals and so on and so forth, And yet, sometimes it's frustrating, right?
So, McCrummon begins with kind of bringing us into a scene of a non-denominational church, right?
Fort Worth, Texas, and you have a pastor who's giving an impassioned sermon about all these various things, competition and greed and lust, but then finishes with, Father, we declare America is yours.
Now, this is, of course, kind of Christian nationalism in a nutshell, right?
We declare America is yours.
It's, you know, God, the Christian God, America is yours.
Now, that's not anything new for those of you who follow, you know, this show, who have read some of the books and authors that we talk about a lot, from Sam Perry and Andrew Whitehead, to Anthea Butler, to Christian Kobes-Dumé, to Robert Jones, to... the list goes on and on and on.
I mean, I've interviewed so many amazing People Audrey Claire Farley and Lucas Kwong and Susanna Crockford and I mean I I could go down the list of all the great people working on this right the frustrating part for me about this article and some of you have pointed this out on on Twitter is McCrumman characterizes this kind of Christian nationalism as new, okay?
She says it represents a rapidly growing kind of Christianity in the United States, one whose goal includes bringing under the authority of a biblical God every facet of life, from schools to city halls to Washington, where the pastor had traveled a month after the January 6th insurrection.
And this is actually where he stood in front of the U.S.
Capitol and said, Father, we declare America as yours, right?
So the pastor of this church He goes to D.C.
after the insurrection, stands in front of the Capitol and says, Father, we declare America is yours.
It's not so.
McCrummon says this is new.
And I guess here's the first frustration is it's not new.
And we've been talking about that.
I'm writing a book that shows how this has been going on not only since the United States was founded, but in the more modern memory since 1960.
If you read Julie Ingersoll's book, Building God's Kingdom, about Christian Reconstruction, we know this has been happening for a generation.
I mean, if you pay attention to the places and the texts and the histories that we pay attention to on this show, you know this is not new, right?
And so, I think that is a little bit frustrating.
It gets a little more frustrating further down the road, or down the article, where McCrummon says, the Church is called a mercy culture, and it is part of a growing Christian movement that is non-denominational, Let's just go back to the beginning of that passage.
of former President Donald Trump's Republican Party.
It includes some of the largest congregations in the nation housed in the husks of old Baptist churches, former big box stores, and sprawling multimillion dollar buildings.
So let's just go back to the beginning of that passage.
Part of a growing movement that is non-denominational, openly political, and become an engine of former President Donald Trump's Republican Party.
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