A Nazi walks into a bar

No, this is not the setup for a tasteless joke.

On Thursday, Oct. 23, a 33 year-old white man named Kenneth Leland Morgan, wearing a tailored SS uniform, attempted to enter Cutter’s Pub in downtown Athens, Ga. Footage captured by another patron shows Morgan, recently denied entry into the bar by the staff, striking University of Georgia student Grace Lang with a beer stein. After Lang falls to the ground, Morgan continues assaulting her, hitting and spitting on her while she bleeds heavily from one side of her face.

Watching the video as a UGA grad, I didn’t think I could be more disturbed.

Then I read the comments on Morgan’s fundraising page.

“White solidarity now,” said one.

Multiple comments featured either “Heil Hitler” or “HH” for short.

The infamous quote from domestic terrorist and white supremacist David Eden Lane appeared, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children,” as well as its shorthand, the number “14.”

One person commented, “Return to the Land,” which is the name of a white separatist group whose members revere Hitler. Another directly quoted Hitler with “Defeats can be borne by any weakling, but only the strong can endure the blows of fate!”

“I wish I could say I am surprised, but I have been paying attention.”

That these kinds of comments are expected makes them no less sickening. Even more nauseating, however, are the posts that pair Nazi rhetoric with “God bless you” and “Christ is King.” I wish I could say I am surprised, but I have been paying attention.

Fascist and white supremacist groups co-opting Christian language for their purposes is nothing new. In fact, it is something of an American tradition. The slaveowners did it. The Confederacy did it. The KKK  did it. The list goes on and on.

So, no, I was not surprised to read the following comment from one of Morgan’s fundraiser supporters: “It is our time to rise and reclaim our nation from the brainwashed and corrupt, to restore our white Christian nation, be proud of who we are, what we as a people have accomplished and establish a future that is uncompromisingly pro-American, everyone else is afforded this courtesy, now it is our time. The sun will rise again.”

There’s a lot to unpack here, but let’s zero in on the claim that our nation is “white” and “Christian.”

Even though overt racism is becoming increasingly fashionable thanks to our gauche commander-in-chief (and covert, structural racism never, ever went out of style), most Americans I know would balk at the use of “white” as a descriptor for our homeland. At least superficially, we still give lip service, however undermined by our actual history and policies, to celebrating America as a racially diverse nation.

Many of those same compatriots, however, would not bat an eye at “Christian” as a descriptor. A 2022 report from Pew bears this out: 60% of Americans think “the founders of America originally intended the U.S. to be a ‘Christian nation.’”

This is an example of the Mandela Effect, the phenomenon in which large groups of people collectively misremember a historical event. That’s right — the U.S. was not founded as a Christian nation. Even before the Bill of Rights guaranteed our right to religious liberty, George Washington was reassuring Americans, both Christian and non, that “no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.”

Disturbed by the Christian-on-Christian persecution he witnessed in Virginia, Thomas Jefferson ensured the religious liberty of all Virginians through the Statute for Religious Freedom.

Then there’s James Madison, whose words on the risks of state-sponsored religion seem to be even more relevant today than they were 200 years ago:

It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. … Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?

And that’s exactly why Christians, of all people, should be aware of and fortifying the separation between church and state. Yet, according to that same 2022 Pew poll, 81% of white evangelicals not only believe the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation but that it should be a Christian nation.

While some examples of the Mandela Effect are innocuous — it’s the Berenstain Bears, not the Berenstein Bears! — this one aligns you with white supremacists and Nazis whether you want it to or not.

If you’re just now finding out that you’ve been unwittingly subscribing to some of the same beliefs and rhetoric fascists use, you’re not alone. Nor is it too late.

“If you’re just now finding out that you’ve been unwittingly subscribing to some of the same beliefs and rhetoric fascists use, you’re not alone.”

Fifteen years ago, when I was a senior at UGA, I was part of that 81%. After college, I joined a megachurch that propagated the Seven Mountain Mandate, which says Christians should be the top influences on the seven areas of society, including government. It’s Christian nationalism (the political ideology that conflates American identity with Christian identity, distorting both in the process) with a Pentecostal twist. And I definitely bought into it.

Looking back, I like to think I never could have been recruited into the kind of overt white Christian nationalism visible in the aforementioned comments. But, truthfully, I know that’s just a comforting fantasy. So many of my peers from that time have become vociferous supporters of the most inhumane policies, all in the name of Christ. There’s no essential difference between them and me, only education. It’s a sobering thought.

But it’s ultimately encouraging because much of the education that made such a difference for me is publicly available. If you’re particularly interested in deconstructing the myth that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation, then BJC (Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty) has you covered. When you understand why the Founders intentionally built such robust religious liberty protections into our Constitution, it becomes obvious why we must defend it now.

BJC, which is the only national faith-based group solely focused on protecting religious freedom for all people, has resources not only on the history of the separation of church and state, but also on the current threat of Christian nationalism and how to fight it.

With smirking Nazi-uniformed men walking into bars, assaulting women and literal Neo-Nazis bailing them out, it’s never been more important to disentangle our faith from those who would distort it for genocidal ends.

 

Amy Hayes is a writer from Atlanta. She earned a master of divinity degree with a concentration in Christian social ethics from McAfee School of Theology and is a former BNG Clemons Fellow and BJC Fellow.

 

BJC Fellows come from diverse educational, professional and religious backgrounds to learn in an intensive education program that equips them for advocacy to protect religious liberty. Learn more about the program here.