Americans have numerous opportunities to push back against Christian nationalism without engaging conservative relatives during holiday gatherings, Amanda Tyler said in a webinar about her new book, How to End Christian Nationalism.
Amanda Tyler
Anyone thinking about raising the topic at a family gathering should ask themselves if they are the right person at the right time and place to engage in what could become an emotionally charged exchange, said Tyler, executive director of Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and lead organizer of Christians Against Christian Nationalism.
During the Dec. 12 webinar moderated by Robert P. Jones, president of Public Religion Research Institute and author of the “White Too Long” Substack, Tyler advised audience members to read Pamela Cooper White’s The Psychology of Christian Nationalism: Why People Are Drawn In and How to Talk Across the Divide.
“Answering those questions for ourselves can help make sure we are not getting ourselves into a corner here, she says, and that the Thanksgiving or holiday table is probably not the right time. You might be the right person, but let’s raise it in a time where you can have a good conversation about it,” Tyler said during the conversation hosted on Jones’ “White Too Long Author Forum.”
Another good idea is to check the motives behind raising the subject in the first place, she added. “The approach in certain situations is just to have a genuine sense of curiosity about how someone is thinking about something, not to go into the conversation trying to change someone’s mind right now.”
“Let’s raise it in a time where you can have a good conversation about it.”
Before covering some of the practical suggestions her book offers individuals and churches opposed to Christian nationalism, Tyler described the nature of the movement and how it has co-opted the meaning of patriotism and lured some Baptists and other Christians into an idolatrous lust for power.
Christian nationalism, she explained, is a political ideology and cultural framework intent on merging American and Christian identities. “It suggests that to be a real American one has to be a Christian, and not just any kind of Christian but a Christian who holds certain fundamentalist religious beliefs that are in line with conservative political priorities.”
Robert P. Jones holds up a copy of Amanda Tyler’s new book.
Religious nationalism is a historically and globally recurring problem with attributes unique to the U.S., she added. “Some of those things are this heavy reliance on a mythological history of the founding of the United States as a ‘Christian nation,’ one that relies heavily on the idea of God’s providential hand guiding America through history as well as the idea that all of American history is somehow sanctioned or in line with some divine plan that God has for the United States.”
The ideology is a threat to American democracy because it limits its concept of citizenship to conservative, usually white, Christians and undercuts constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and the separation of church and state, she said.
“It is also a form of idolatry that distorts the teachings of Jesus. It suggests that God loves America best, that God blesses America, that there is a certain favor for America above other nations. And that contradicts John’s Gospel that ‘God so loved the world.’ It doesn’t say ‘for God so loved the United States.’ But Christian nationalism really threatens the idea of a universal love of God and the constitutional promises that one’s belonging in American society should never depend on one’s religion or how one worships.”
Jones said his latest book, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future, explores the racist dimension of Christian nationalism and how it threatened religious freedom and pluralism even before the nation’s founding. He asked Tyler how president-elect Donald Trump’s use of the isolationist “America First” slogan combines with the religious ideology undermining faith and democracy.
“Here’s an example of a where blind allegiance to country can come into conflict with our religious convictions,” she replied. “As a Christian, I see the image of God in every single person, and that our shared humanity is much more important than any national identity we hold. This ‘America First’ idea says our only obligation is to country, and that anything we have to do in our self-interest is above other duties we might hold to a shared humanity around the world.”
To resist these ideologies, start with a recognition and admission of complicity, Tyler said. “White Christians, particularly, have an obligation to get over our own white fragility around the topic of white supremacy.”
The challenge is convincing that majority to speak out against the ideology.
That can be a difficult admission for those convinced Christian nationalism lurks primarily in the dark recesses of church and society, she added. “But when we look over our history, we see how white Christianity has absorbed the messages of Christian nationalism and white supremacy for centuries. We shouldn’t be surprised that the way we practice our religion — whether it be in our theologies, our interpretation of Scripture, worship practices, worship songs, festivals — has been infected by Christian nationalism and has drawn us away from a Christianity based on the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus.”
PRRI research showing 70% of Americans reject Christian nationalism is encouraging, Tyler added, but the challenge is convincing that majority to speak out against the ideology. Churches can help in that effort through grassroots organizing, coalition-building and discerning where Christian nationalism is causing harm locally, she suggested.
Advocating for public schools is a logical place to start given the barrage of fundamentalist Christian efforts to bring the Ten Commandments (Louisiana), Bibles (Oklahoma) and chaplains (Texas and Florida) into classrooms in different parts of the country.
“I wrote a whole chapter in the book about public schools because that’s an area that has really been targeted by those who are pushing a Christian-nationalist agenda. We all live in an area that is served by a public school and we all have an opportunity to support the public schools,” she said. “They are laboratories of democracy in our communities.”
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