The Flag and the Cross with Sam Perry and Phil Gorski
In Part 1 of a two-part interview, Brad speaks with Philip Gorski (Yale) and Sam Perry (Oklahoma University) about their new book, the Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-flag-and-the-cross-9780197618684?cc=us⟨=en&#.
Gorski and Perry explain what white Christian nationalism is and is not; when it first emerged and how it has changed; where it's headed and why it threatens democracy. Tracing the development of this ideology over the course of three centuries—and especially its influence over the last three decades—they show how, throughout American history, white Christian nationalism has animated the oppression, exclusion, and even extermination of minority groups while securing privilege for white Protestants. It enables white Christian Americans to demand "sacrifice" from others in the name of religion and nation, while defending their "rights" in the names of "liberty" and "property."
Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJC
Order Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163
SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ron
To Donate:
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi
Venmo: @straightwhitejc
Produced by Brad Onishi
Edited by Shannon Sassone
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Axis Mundy Axis Mundy You're listening to an Irreverent Podcast.
Visit irreverent.fm for more content from our amazing lineup of creators.
Hello friends!
Before we jump in today, I wanted to say thank you to all of you for your support.
All of our patrons and people who reach out to us, we are immensely grateful, and you definitely make this show go.
In the new year, we're looking forward to continuing the show and doing it three times a week, but we're basically in a place where we need to continue to raise revenue and raise money in order to do that.
For Dan and I, this is a passion project.
It's something that takes up a lot of time, especially for me.
I am the writer, the producer, the interviewer, the editor, and all of those things.
And so, with a newborn, and with job responsibilities, and all kinds of other things, both Dan and I are basically staring down a scenario where we need to kind of figure out how we can balance all of those obligations with the time it takes to do this show.
Not just once, not just twice, but three times a week.
And so, if you have not thought about becoming a patron yet, please think about that today.
Or if you would like just an ad-free experience without having to sign up for Patreon and all that stuff, you can find that in our show notes as well.
It would really help us and allow me to focus on content and to interviewing great scholars and journalists and to formulating further series and documentaries.
And if none of that's possible, we totally understand.
We would hope that you would perhaps stop by Apple Podcasts and give us a review.
It helps us out immensely.
And share all of our stuff on social media.
That helps too.
Hello friends.
I know you were all expecting a weekly roundup today on Friday, but Dan and I decided that we were going to take this week off.
Both of us have had a lot going on in terms of family, in terms of medical issues, in terms of work issues, and we both looked at each other and realized that we were kind of on the edge of burnout this week, and so we decided it was one we're going to take off.
But luckily, we have a great set of interviews for you.
Today is part one of my interview with two great sociologists of religion, and we'll publish the second part on Monday.
As always, we're so grateful for you, our audience, and for all of our patrons and supporters who help us make this show go.
If you If you haven't thought about joining our Patreon, every patron gets an ad-free experience and access to a lot of extras, including our Discord server on which we have an amazingly nerdy religion and politics discussions on a daily basis.
We hope you're having a great weekend.
We'll turn now to the interview.
By now we are all familiar with the idea of Christian nationalism.
The ideology that says that the United States was built for and by white Christians, the one that tries to fuse Christian identity with American identity.
However, the ripple effects of this ideology continue to manifest themselves throughout our culture and our politics.
So much so that two of the country's leading sociologists of religion have not only continued to analyze these effects, but are willing to issue what amounts to a warning.
about the state of our democracy and the unraveling of Christian nationalism as it relates to violence, xenophobia, prejudice, and oppression of minority groups.
Today I welcome back in a two-part interview Phil Gorski and Sam Perry, who are the authors of the new book, "The Flag and the Cross." They help unpack the various manifestations of Christian nationalism in our history, from the Puritans to the 21st century, and also the ways that it threatens our democracy itself.
Here is part one of our conversation on these topics and more.
Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, faculty at the University of San Francisco.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center at UCSB.
And we have a Straight White American Jesus first.
We have a joint interview.
We have two guests and they're amazing guests.
And so we're breaking new ground here.
This is like a really big day.
And so I want to welcome Phil Gorski and Sam Perry.
Phil and Sam, thanks for being here.
It's a pleasure.
Great to be with you again, Brad.
So, we just had the Super Bowl, and the Super Bowl halftime show was celebrated, especially by old millennials and Gen Xers like me, because it just brought back together so many people from our childhood that we thought, you know, were amazing.
So, we had, you know, Eminem was there, and Mary J. Blige, and 50 Cent was hanging upside down.
However, there's an iconic shot of Dr. Dre standing next to Snoop Dogg, and as I was trying to figure out how to explain to people the the duo of Phil Gorski and Sam Perry, you know, LeBron James and Dwayne Wade came to mind, because it's like, it's not one A and one B, it's like one orange and one blue, you know?
If you want to do sociology of religion, it's like, it's not Batman and Robin, it's more like just, you know, an equal partnership, and So I think maybe Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg is the best.
Dr. Dre's a little older, so Phil, I think you're Dr. Dre here.
Sam, you would be Snoop Dogg.
I don't know if you're quite as tall as Snoop Dogg, but I hope that works for everybody.
And if you ever ask me to introduce you at an academic gala or anything, you let me know.
I can bring this analogy out anytime you guys like, okay?
Oh, that's perfect.
The pop culture reference, I love it.
I love it.
All right.
All right.
Enough foolishness for me.
So, y'all have a new book out, and the book is amazing.
It's called The Flag and the Cross, and it's just dropping now.
White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy.
I want to talk about this.
You can really see both of your expertise here and approaches.
You know, Phil's very long historical view that you've always brought to your work, Sam.
The quantitative work, the survey work, and the takeaways.
I want to start, though, by asking you this.
The subtitle says, White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy.
There seems to be a little more urgency here from both of you in terms of just what I've seen in your previous work.
Would you mind just giving us a little insight into why it felt important to kind of include this idea of, here's our research and here's why there is an actual threat to our country?
Well, I think Sam can probably speak to the shift in attitudes and document that a little bit.
But, you know, we've both spoken here and elsewhere about an authoritarian turn in white Christian nationalism.
So I think, you know, you take the long view, you know, white Christian nationalism was, you know, could go together with a certain kind of democracy.
I mean, obviously a kind of democracy that Excluded a lot of people, but, you know, still adhere to the basic idea of, you know, free and fair elections and representative institutions and constitutional norms and the rule of law and all that.
Not to downplay, you know, the role of political violence in American history, which is considerable, but You know, I think what is what is new here is this authoritarian turn and you can see this in the, you know, the kind of way in which many folks who embrace white Christian nationalism have been drawn towards Russia and towards Putin, right?
You know, seeing him representing, you know, kind of a, you know, Russian Orthodox version of white Christian nationalism, you know, sort of a strong man who was going to defend the racial and religious purity of the nation, you know, kind of a bulwark who would push back against, what do they call it?
Oh, right.
So this is like one of the homosphere.
This is a turn of phrase that I heard the other day, I think a Russian diplomat uses.
And so like, you know, if you look at that, and that's the kind of guy that they idolize, and we're watching right now in real time, you know, what, you know, what he's doing, both inside Russia, with his just total repression, total media blight blackout, with his just total repression, total media blight blackout, you know, just unbelievable firehose of propaganda that's being spewed to say nothing of the, you know, the kind of suffering and damage that he's inflicting on the kind of suffering and
You know, the country of Ukraine.
You know, I don't want to say that this is, you know, what white Christian nationalists necessarily have in mind for us.
But, you know, we should take that there are so many people who are attracted to this guy.
I think has to be taken as another warning sign.
You know, it's a warning sign like January 6th was a warning sign that there is a there's a real serious threat to American democracy.
And that's why we really felt we had to give it that subtitle.
Well, thinking about Russia, you know, I think about a state that is, at least in Putin's mind, somewhat It's an ethnotraditional place in some sense.
And this is something you point to as a core part of Christian nationalism in the book, that Christian nationalism, as both of you have said before, and Sam, you know, I've heard you and read you on this a lot.
It's not necessarily about religious commitment.
It's about ethnotraditionalism.
And so I'm wondering, Sam, if you might take us through that.
How is white Christian nationalism about ethnicity and traditionalism?
And yeah, maybe we can kind of go from there with the theory.
Thanks for listening to this free preview of our SWADGE episode.
In order to get access to the full episode and so much more, become a Straight White American Jesus Premium Subscriber by clicking the link in the show notes.
It'll take you like two clicks, I promise.
In addition to getting access to this episode, you'll have access to the entire SWADGE archive, over 550 episodes.
You'll also get an extra episode every month, ad-free listening, Discord access, and so much more.
All that for less than six bucks a month, and it helps us keep our flag up and continue to safeguard democracy from religious nationalism, extremism, and rising authoritarianism.
