It's In the Code Ep. 73: "Lot of Great People in That Church"
“Evangelicalism isn’t just Christian nationalism. There are also a lot of great individuals who are evangelicals but not Christian nationalists.” We hear that a lot. But is it as plausible a concern as it sounds? And why do people say this? Are they really just concerned about “great individuals” who are portrayed badly? What is there to decode in this sentiment? How might we respond to it? In this episode, Dan takes a closer look at this response and the issues it raises.
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Hello, welcome to It's in the Code, a series as part of the podcast Straight White American Jesus, my My name is Dan Miller.
I am Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
I am your host.
As always, glad to be with you.
As always, I want to begin by thanking all of you who listen to the things that we do at Straight White American Jesus, including this series.
And as always, I invite you to keep ideas and topics and feedback coming.
You can reach me, Daniel Miller Swaj, DanielMillerSWAJ at gmail.com.
As always, I am behind in responding to folks, but I am reading.
I am catching up.
My semester is getting to a spot where I can perhaps get my head above water long enough to respond to more folks.
So please keep those coming.
I want to hear what you have to say.
I want to hear thoughts that you might have.
Today's episode, and I mean, you might be like, well, how is that different, Dan?
But today's episode, a little bit of a rant.
I'm going to push back on a response that I get.
I wouldn't say a lot.
I'd say I get it, you know, from time to time.
I know we get it on Straight White American Jesus and the Weekly Roundup.
I know that Brad gets it on the stuff that he does with Straight White American Jesus as well.
I know a lot of the other series that we have on Axis Mundi get it.
For whatever reason this week, I've heard it from some folks and it just, it annoys me to the point of, of what?
Of really kind of pissing me off, honestly.
I just, I just get really worked up about it.
And what it is, it's a response that some folks have.
I think some are well-meaning, some are defensive, some are not, you know, whatever.
I think it relates to the fact that obviously we spend a lot of our time on this platform critiquing the politics and practices of majority white American evangelicalism.
And yes, I keep the white in there for lots of reasons.
I think it's a highly racial issue.
Email me, let me know, you want to argue with me about that, we can do that, right?
Sometimes it comes from dismissive emails that I get.
Sometimes it comes from Facebook posts that I get.
I've gotten it from people I knew when I was an evangelical college student and they were evangelical college students and I am now very clearly no longer an evangelical and they are and will have Sort of back and forth about this.
Sometimes it comes from people that have family members that they care about who identify as evangelicals or friends or whatever.
Sometimes it comes from colleagues and other people who examine contemporary religion in America who will bring this Uh, this response to me, and this is what it is, okay?
It's the response, or like a range of responses, a constellation of responses, and it goes something like this.
It starts out by saying, I really love the work you do and agree with almost everything you say, comma, right?
And I get lots of those responses and value those, keep them coming, danielmillerswedge at gmail.com.
But whenever I see that, I really love the work you do and agree with almost everything you say, but, and I'm always like, oh, what's coming after that?
And it's something like this, but I worry that you miss the fact that there are a lot of great, sincere individuals within evangelical culture or subculture or within American evangelicalism.
The concern is, or as it's articulated is, That in talking about the things that we do, these kind of let's call them sort of meta-level issues of evangelicalism and politics and Christian nationalism and all of those kinds of things, that in looking at those sort of large-scale collective patterns, that we overlook individuals within evangelicalism who are somehow an exception to those patterns.
And the idea is that in criticizing the movement, we're painting with too broad a brush, we're making statements that are too big, we're somehow being unfair to those individuals within evangelicalism who aren't what we criticize.
Okay?
And so I hear that from folks as a kind of criticism, sometimes well-meaning, sometimes really nasty, sometimes sincere, I think sometimes coming from a place of really bad faith, all different kinds of orientations to this.
And I also hear it from clients.
The work that I do at the Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery as a coach there, I also hear about it from listeners who come at it this way and say, I hear this.
I hear the things that you say and they're important to me and I think that they're right.
And I tell people about them and somebody will come at me with the, well yeah, but what about all the good individuals within the movement who aren't that?
What do you say to that?
How do you respond to that?
And they'll say, I don't know how to respond to that.
Something about that response feels off.
It feels like there's something misfiring there and I don't know what it is.
How do I respond to that?
So this has just been on my mind.
And this week, you know, I heard about this again for, you know, the umpteenth millionth time.
I think I just said that wrong.
Umpteen millionth time.
There we go.
And it just sort of kind of pushed me over the edge to say, OK, let's talk about this, because that's what I want to get at.
I want to get at the what is off.
about that piece of this.
Why it is that I don't think that this is a valid response.
I don't think that this carries the weight that people think it means.
If you're one of those people listening and you're like, how do I respond when somebody says this?
What is off about this?
Something about that response feels weird to me or it feels disingenuous or it feels problematic and I can't put my finger on what it is.
That's what we're here for.
That's what we're doing in It's In The Code is decoding these things to get at that aspect.
So that's what I want to look at.
Okay.
And so again, we often do we start on the surface, the basic idea here is pretty, pretty straightforward.
But I think that's exactly why it's a topic that begs for some decoding.
Because I think the surface meaning Which I think sounds plausible to a lot of people.
I think it masks some really important issues.
What I think it does is it works to stop us from getting at some bigger, heftier issues because it, I think for a lot of people, it sounds plausible.
It's hard to know how to respond to it or why it isn't.
So on the surface, the reasoning is something like this, okay?
Pretty straightforward and probably clear to everybody.
Yes, there are large-scale patterns of white American evangelicals expressing Christian nationalism or supporting Christian nationalism and so forth.
Not going to try to establish that.
If you don't think that that's a reality, if you've listened to us for years at this point and you're not there, you're just not going to be there.
So that's fine.
But that's what they'll say.
So yes, we agree there are these large-scale patterns, but when we only look at that big picture, we miss all the good, earnest, faithful individuals within evangelicalism who are there for other reasons, who aren't that.
You're painting it up as monolithic, and it isn't.
These are the people who say that, you know, those good individuals, they're not in it for politics or power.
They're in it because of the theology, or because of spiritual needs, or because of religious community, or whatever.
Okay?
And like I say, I know for a lot of people that'll have the sound of plausibility.
And some will say, you know, isn't it important to think of those individuals?
So let me just come out and say, I call bullshit on this for a lot of reasons.
More reasons than we have time for here.
I'm debating if like, I don't know, there's some other episodes here that could sort of tie in with this or not.
I got to give that some thought.
Again, always welcome your thoughts or feedback on this.
But I call BS.
And here's why, okay, or let me let me start by saying why I'm not calling BS.
And let me say this really clearly.
It is not because I don't recognize that there are individuals within evangelicalism who don't support Christian nationalism, etc.
I do.
I have emphasized since I first started writing about this topic, it was even before we started the podcast, that for example, if we say that in 2016, 81% of white evangelicals supported Trump, it means that almost 20% didn't.
I get that.
I know that.
I emphasize this a lot.
I hear it from students.
I hear it from others saying, you're saying all evangelicals.
Nope.
Not saying all evangelicals.
It's built into the stats.
It's not all evangelicals.
And that's why I like the social scientists out there who do that quantitative work that I think is so important.
Okay.
But I don't think that what's really going on when people make this statement, I don't think it has very much to do with facts like that, or with data, or with numbers.
Okay?
So I'm not going to go down that path.
That's not what I'm interested in.
Okay?
One thing I think that is expressed in this kind of knee-jerk response, and the first thing is it's a dismissal.
When somebody says you're ignoring the evangelical individuals, all those good individuals, it is a dismissal of The criticisms that are leveled.
And somebody's going to say to me, no it's not, no it's not, I like everything you say, I just worry about this.
And I'm going to say, then I think you don't like everything I say, I think you're not on board.
And for reasons that I think are going to come along later, I've got issues, I've got concerns.
If you're one of those people whose first response when you hear these criticisms is to say, well what about all the evangelicals who aren't that?
I've got concerns.
And that's the topic I might come back to.
The sort of, well, not all evangelicals dot dot dot.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure if that's too close to where I'm at today.
But the first thing then is, it's a denial.
It's a dismissal of those criticisms.
And I think, and this is something I talk about, and I do have some sympathy and some identification for people who feel this way.
But one thing that I think is, I think it's a kind of dismissive, sort of psychologically protective response.
And I talk about this a lot, you know, in our weekly roundups and other places.
I think it expresses fear.
I think it expresses a sense of helplessness in the face of the ongoing mainstreaming of American Christian nationalism.
It is scary to recognize that Christian nationalism is not a fringe movement.
It is scary to have to confront the scope of American Christian nationalism and the resistance that it has to being challenged.
And that can be overwhelming.
So I think that we have a knee-jerk reflex To persist in affirming the myth that this movement is somehow not an expression of like authentic evangelicalism.
That real evangelicalism is something else.
Real evangelicalism is the evangelicalism of all those good individuals in the movement who don't hold to this.
And media, and maybe people like us and others, we mask that fact.
We make it seem more serious than it is and so forth.
Okay?
I understand that defensive response.
But we've spent years addressing that kind of denial, and that's not where I want to go today.
Again, email me, danielmillerswage at gmail.com.
You may not hear from me for like four years, but I will read your emails.
I will try to respond to them, but that's not where I'm at today to talk about that because I've talked about it a lot.
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But I get it.
I think that that's part of it, is just this kind of defensive response, okay?
But beyond that, setting that response aside, I think there are some other bigger issues.
These are the reasons I call BS, and these are what matter to me, okay?
And so here's the first, and this is a big one for me, and I'm just going to state it as a kind of claim, okay?
When you come at me with the, what about all the good individuals in evangelicalism who aren't this?
Here's my rejoinder.
The fact that those individuals continue to participate in this religious subculture means that they're not good individuals.
I reject your premise.
If your premise is within contemporary white American evangelicalism, which has become a mainstream mechanism of American Christian nationalism, that there are lots of good individuals who aren't part of that, my response, my first move is I reject your premise.
I don't think they're good individuals.
And let's look at some other parallels.
If you want to tell me that you're, say, a good parent, but I see you being nasty to your kids all the time.
I see you using physical punishments to discipline them.
I see you belittle them.
I see you yelling at them all the time.
I see them sort of cowering and fearing you instead of being drawn to you.
All those kinds of things, we've all seen that.
Then guess what?
I'm going to say you're not a good parent.
I may not tell it to your face.
It may be something that I think and not something I say, but I'm going to reject your claim that you're a good parent.
You want to tell me that you're a good romantic partner, but I see you doing things that belittle your partner.
I hear you making negative comments.
Maybe you comment on their weight or their appearance or, uh, you know, maybe, maybe we're friends and we go out and we get a drink or something.
And I hear you saying nasty things about that person.
Guess what?
I'm going to say, you're not a good romantic partner.
I'm going to reject your claim that that's what you are.
If you're part of a social organization, maybe it's a school club, maybe it's a fraternity, maybe it's a community group, whatever, and it becomes known, it comes to your attention, that that club discriminates against people of color, it just doesn't have any members of color, or maybe it makes those comments, or it has membership requirements that make it difficult for diverse people to be a part of it, or something like that, and you remain a part of it?
I'm going to reject your claims that, for example, you're not a racist, or you're not a homophobe, or whatever it is, whatever group is effectively barred from membership, I'm going to reject that claim.
So if you're part of an American religious subculture, that at this point, any objective, informed observer can now recognize as Christian nationalist, I think that's established.
And you choose to remain within it, I'm not giving you a pass.
If you're saying you're a good person, you're one of those good individuals, if saying that, that, hey, I'm a good person, I'm not one of them, I'm a good person, if it means that you're not a Christian nationalist, if that's part of what being a quote-unquote good person is for you, then remaining in that subculture tells me you're not a good person.
And I don't care what's in your heart, I don't care if the person says, you don't know anything about me.
Yep, I do know something about you.
I know you're part of a Christian nationalist subculture.
That's what I know, that's what I see.
I've used this illustration before.
When some celebrity gets pulled over and they've been drinking or they're high or something and they get out of their car and they open their mouth and just like say a bunch of anti-semitic stuff and then they sober up a day or two later and they say, this didn't reflect my values.
This isn't who I am as a person.
You know what my response is?
I think all of our response would be, you are that person.
We saw who you are.
I don't need to know your inner heart.
Who you are is what you show to the world.
And that's that's that's who and what you are.
That's what I'm going to base my judgment on.
That's all any of us can base our judgments on about anybody in the world is what they show us.
So if you stay within that subculture, that tells me what I need to know.
And so when you come at me saying, well, you know, but I'm really I'm a good person.
Yeah, I don't buy it.
And folks, I want to point this out too, that good people line, there are good people in the movement, that is literally Trump speak.
This is Trump responding to the Unite the Right rally by saying that there were very fine people on both sides.
It is literally the same thing.
This is the person who defends partner abuse and says, well, you know, but yeah, he's a really good guy though.
He just loses his temper sometimes.
And guess what?
If you lose your temper and hurt other people, Means you're not a good person.
You could be.
You could work on that.
You could address that.
You could own up to it.
Lots of things you could do to remedy that.
But if you're not doing those things, don't come at me with, you know, I'm really a good person deep down.
And I get why this will provoke resistance from some people.
It's a hard sell.
No one wants to think about friends or family or co-workers this way.
No one wants to acknowledge that people in their lives that they might care a lot about are not quote-unquote good people.
But if we are serious about naming Christian nationalism for what it is, we have to back that up.
We have to name it.
We have to call it out.
And that brings up the last point I want to make, and it's kind of related to this former point, but it's another argument that goes something like this.
And again, these are real conversations I have with people, okay?
I'm not making this up.
It's something like this.
It'll say, well, okay, yeah, I guess I can hear what you're saying, but you know, those, it's important for those, those good people, those individuals to stay in the movement so they can change it, or at least balance it from within.
If all the non-Christian nationalists leave, you know, mainstream white American evangelicalism, boy, imagine what it'll be like then.
I hear this a lot.
And my response, again, might sound plausible, but my response is, again, bullshit.
And here's the reason, right?
They're not changing it.
That change isn't happening, that change isn't coming.
There is absolutely no evidence that this supposed groundswell of good people, of good individuals within American Evangelicalism are moving it away from Christian Nationalism.
There is in fact evidence that more Evangelicals are becoming Christian Nationalists, that Christian Nationalism is becoming more mainstream within American Evangelicalism, so much so that some people are becoming Evangelicals because they are Christian Nationalists.
We've talked a lot about this too.
I've got to wind this down.
I don't have time to fully develop this point.
But here's the issue.
If someone within the movement does try to challenge it, to move it in a different direction, what usually happens is not that the movement changes, it happens that they are pushed out of the movement.
Which means that if we have all these supposedly good people who aren't pushed out of the movement, it's because they're in that movement and they're not changing it.
They're not voicing opposition to it.
They're not opposing it.
That's not what's happening.
And quite frankly, friends, if you're not opposing it, you're supporting it.
That's how it works.
They sit quietly by and let things go as they have been.
And that then throws us right back into the previous point.
They want to say, yeah, but I'm a good person.
Sorry, you're not.
Or, you know, maybe you're not completely bad or evil or something.
I'm not trying to demonize people, but you're not good enough.
As harsh as that may sound.
I need to wrap this up.
As I said, kind of a rant today, but I think, I think this is what is encoded within this seemingly plausible sounding notion that we miss all the good individuals within the white evangelical movement when we criticize these larger scale patterns.
It's a coded way of expressing that maybe we just don't want to deal with a problem, that we're overwhelmed by it, that we're scared by it, that we're afraid by it, and we don't want to address it.
We got to start by naming that.
It feels overwhelming.
We feel powerless.
Let's say that and figure out where to go from there instead of giving people a pass for participating in the movement.
It is also a coded way of excusing those who remain within a movement that no one can plausibly deny is invested in Christian nationalism.
And I say that to you whether that's you, Staying in that movement and trying to convince yourself that you can do that and that you don't have any moral culpability in those broader patterns, or whether it's somebody you know, or somebody else, or you're just looking for a way to respond to somebody, whatever it is, I opened up with that notion of people who say, I feel like there's something off in this.
This is what's off is that it's code for that.
And it's also a coded way of excusing those who remain in the movement precisely by choosing not to address Christian nationalism.
All of that, for me, is what is going on underneath the seeming plausibility of that statement.
It's not really a statement about the good individuals in there.
It's a statement about the cost that would come with actually having to name and address Christian nationalism.
And I think for a lot of us who have loved ones or friends or coworkers or whomever else that are part of that movement, it's the cost that would come with having to come to terms with the fact that they're not good people or, or that if we don't want to go that far, that they're not good enough.
That this is something that matters and it's not good enough.
For them to remain in that movement and tell us that they're somehow good people.
Right?
So, a final thought for those who might say something like this, and this is the response, like, okay, everything you're saying sounds great, but it's, you know, you're coming at this from the outside.
For these people, it's, you know, evangelicalism is so much more than this.
It's a matter of their faith.
Can you really expect somebody to leave the tradition of their faith?
And my answer is this, if you want me to believe that it's really a matter of fundamental faith to them, and if Christian nationalism isn't a part of that, I would say their faith would compel them to leave.
If they really believe all the things that they say they believe theologically and they supposedly oppose Christian nationalism, their faith should compel them to leave.
If it is the corruption of the evangelical faith that so many evangelical apologists want us to believe that it is, their faith would compel them to leave.
So when they don't, if you want to talk about their faith and how it's not wrapped up in Christian nationalism, yes, I am the person who will question their faith.
How could they possibly, if it's really a matter of faith, how could they possibly stay in good conscience?
And folks, let me say, I hear this from people a lot, they say, well, you're talking from the, I am talking from the outside.
I'm not an evangelical, but I was.
And these are exactly the kinds of issues, not just this, and we didn't call it Christian nationalism, but it was a part of it.
These are the kinds of things that forced me to cross that bridge.
When I left evangelicalism, it was as an issue of faith.
It was because I was a committed, believing Christian that I could no longer, in good conscience, remain within the evangelical camp.
So I've been there, and I've done that, and I've crossed that bridge.
I know how hard that can be.
I also know that if we're serious about that, if faith, quote unquote, is something that matters to us, you want to convince me of that?
Show me.
As I say, I need to wrap this up.
Kind of a rant today.
I hope that's okay.
I hope people get something out of it.
Email me, danielmillerswage at gmail.com.
Would love to hear what you have to say, as always.
As always, we thank all of you who listen to us, those of you who listen to Straight White American Jesus, listen to the other shows on Axis Mundi, patrons and others who support us.
We can't do it without you.
Straight White American Jesus puts out original content three times a week.
We are completely self-funded.
We don't have external funding sources, we don't have institutional support and so forth, so we can't do it without you.
As always for this series, keep the ideas coming, keep the topics coming, we'd love to hear more about what you're thinking.
And let me know what you think about this episode, this idea of the good people that are still there, and the way that that works as a kind of code.
I think there's more to delve into there, but I'm not sure there's enough to warrant the time, to warrant more episodes on that.
