As Donald Trump criticizes Kamala Harris for supposedly “turning Black,” laughing too expressively or creating AI-generated crowds, his poll numbers are slipping. Therefore, many of his political advisers are urging him to focus on policies. One of the most common statements from conservative pundits over the last few weeks is that if Trump would focus on policies, he would win because most Americans agree with conservatives on policies.
But unfortunately for Republicans, that’s simply not the case anymore since the Christian nationalism embedded in Project 2025 would spell the end of our democracy.
Both sides claim to be campaigning for truth and justice, yet we have radically different views on how to define what’s fair and what’s right. As previous BNG reporting has shown, both sides claim they are defending democracy. Yet given what we’ve witnessed from the Christian nationalists in recent years, how we understand the meaning of democracy matters urgently.
As David Gushee wrote earlier this week, “No specific policy issue contested within a democracy is as important as whether the democracy itself survives.”
Christ is king?
Gushee concluded his piece by saying: “Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God. No country is that kingdom. No human community deserves ultimate loyalty.”
Of course, Gushee is correct about the kingdom, countries and community. But one of the problems in our current discourse is that the idea of Jesus being king is one of the most foundational arguments of Christian nationalists. In fact, the Christian nationalist organization Right Response Ministries has named their 2025 Conference, “Christ is King: How to Defeat Trashworld.”
“One of the problems in our current discourse is that the idea of Jesus being king is one of the most foundational arguments of Christian nationalists.”
Like Jesus’ original disciples, today’s Christian nationalists tap into the idea of Jesus reigning over the world by assuming Jesus wants them to be in positions of power and authority. This is what the Seven Mountains Mandate of the New Apostolic Reformation is all about. And it’s in the noncharismatic theologies of Christian nationalism as well.
Strategies for responding to Christian nationalists
One of the struggles we have in responding to Christian nationalists is figuring out what line of reasoning to take up with them. Because Christian nationalists are convinced they’re basing their belief on Jesus and the Bible, one common approach among conservative and moderate evangelicals is to argue with them on the basis of Scripture by providing additional verses or alternative interpretations. But this approach tends to devolve into “Verse Wars” that go back and forth without accomplishing anything.
Another approach many moderates and progressives take is to redefine “kingship” by showing how the Hebrew prophets and Jesus himself subverted the assumptions of empire by locating God on the underside of power in and among the oppressed. The benefit of this approach is that you can continue to affirm Jesus as king and the Bible as the king’s revelation.
In my conversations with conservatives who are not Christian nationalists, this approach tends to work well and may prove effective in exiling Christian nationalists from gaining momentum. But it still feels uncomfortable to use words like “king” and “reign” while thinking of definitions that are completely subverted from their popular usage because those words trigger within the hearers’ feelings of supremacy.
A third approach is to live in relationship with them and hope your long-term friendship may help them wonder if not all liberals are being possessed or controlled by demons. To be sure, living within and among people in healthy relationships can help soften their heart to “the other.” But given what Project 2025 has in store for our country, we can’t beat around the bush until 2050 while these policies get enacted.
A fourth strategy is to expose Christian nationalists as really weird extremists. As I wrote in my piece on the New Apostolic Reformation, these are people who once climbed Mount Everest and stabbed the snow while worshipping because they thought there was an invisible ice castle that was home to an invisible queen and dragon who were controlling the 10/40 Window. It’s an entertaining story, for sure. And it’s quite effective for convincing conservatives who are not Christian nationalists of how disconnected from reality many of these people are.
But unfortunately, the underlying theology still remains present even among most seemingly normal evangelicals — the ideas that Jesus is king and the Bible is the king’s inerrant decree for the roles of men and women.
Deconstructing God as king
The idea of deconstructing God as king is a stretch even for many progressive Christians because it’s such an assumed narrative about God in the Bible. Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God, commanded his disciples to “seek first the kingdom of God,” and commissioned them to preach the kingdom of God.
“The idea of deconstructing God as king is a stretch even for many progressive Christians because it’s such an assumed narrative about God in the Bible.”
But before Jesus spoke of the kingdom, Israel had long sought for a king who would deliver them from the constant threat of exile and rule in their land. The origin story of kingship in ancient Israel is from 1 Samuel 8, when the people asked Samuel to give them a king who would lead them like all the other nations had.
This implies the idea of kingship pre-dates the Bible. And in fact, we know this to be true because kings first began ruling around 3000 B.C. after powerful people won wars against weaker people and began exercising authority over them.
To complicate matters further, modern humans have been around for about 300,000 years. So if we assume God is literally a king wearing a crown and a robe and sitting on a throne somewhere, at what point did that happen? Was God dressed up as a human figure that wouldn’t exist for another 297,000 years? What was God doing for the 4.5 billion years before humans evolved? Sitting on a throne wearing a crown and watching the dinosaurs? What about during the 10 billion years before the earth even formed? At what point were the thrones and crowns built?
Call me skeptical. But it seems far more likely either that people in the ancient Near East were talking about God in the ultimate terms they knew, or that God was meeting them in the terms they knew.
And ironically, going all the way back to that first request in 1 Samuel 8, Yahweh is the one who deconstructs kingship. He tells Samuel: “They have rejected me as their king. … Let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.” Then Yahweh explains that a king would take the people’s children and put them into hierarchies of authority based on gender that cause violence. The sons would be turned into military commanders, while the daughters would be turned into perfumers, cooks and bakers.
Ironically, this is exactly what Christian nationalists have in mind for Americans. They want to arrange us into hierarchies that include gender roles that utilize the violent authority of men and that keep women in the home. And they claim to be following God as king in doing so.
But if they actually read the words of Yahweh, they would understand Yahweh wasn’t claiming the rights of a king because Yahweh was letting them be free to choose another leader. If they heeded the warning of Yahweh, they’d be looking in the mirror at the gender stereotypes they’re promoting.
“The gendered authoritarian plans of Christian nationalists are the opposite of what Yahweh had in mind.”
In other words, even if Yahweh is some kind of a literal king, and if the Bible is an inerrant record of his decrees, the gendered authoritarian plans of Christian nationalists are the opposite of what Yahweh had in mind. They’re what Yahweh warned about.
Deconstructing the Bible as the king’s inerrant revelation
In an episode of the “Premier Unbelievable?” podcast, Mack Stiles, director of Messenger Ministries, and Dan Barker, president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, discuss the connection between the idea of God as king and the Bible as the king’s inerrant decrees.
Stiles says, “If you look at Roman or Greek culture, you realize these guys are cruel.” To Stiles, Christianity came along and changed the idea of authorities being cruel by creating a moral Christian culture based on submitting to the decrees of God in the Bible.
But to Barker, the very idea of bending the knee to Yahweh is inherently violent, especially when accompanied by the threat of eternal conscious torment. “You are acquiescing to this unjust system that people should be punished for not kissing the feet of a deity,” he said.
Then Stiles shot back: “You’re setting the rules for God. You’re setting the rules for me (and) yourself. … I don’t think I want to follow Dan’s rules. I want to follow God’s rules.”
And what happens to those who don’t follow the king’s rules? Barker says to Stiles, “You think I’m going to suffer. You think I’m going to burn forever because I don’t think like you do.”
Then Stiles replies, “I think it’s going to be worse than that. And it’s not because you don’t think like I do. It’s because you don’t align yourself with the ways of God and what he’s revealed.”
“If the Bible can’t be questioned, neither can they be questioned if they’re standing on the authority of Scripture.”
For inerrantists, the authority of the Bible gives them their authority. So if the Bible can’t be questioned, neither can they be questioned if they’re standing on the authority of Scripture. But for inerrancy to be true, there can’t be a single inaccuracy in Scripture. If the Bible attributes something to God’s words, it has to be true.
But if we’re going to be that strict about our expectations for the Bible, then the Bible can’t even pass as an inerrant authority on kingship.
In 1 Kings 3:11-13, Yahweh tells Solomon, “No one like you has been before you, and no one like you shall arise after you.” But then 2 Kings 18:5 says about Hezekiah, “There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him.” And then 2 Kings 23:25 says, “Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him.”
To complicate matters further, prior to these kings, Yahweh tells David in 2 Samuel 7:16, “Your throne shall be established forever.” And yet, none of this worked out because the nation went into exile and kings never returned.
Ironically, the way evangelicals deal with this is by saying the kings in the Hebrew Bible ultimately were pointing to Jesus as king, that David’s throne would be established forever through Jesus, and that there is no king like Jesus either before or after him.
But how can that be true from an inerrantist standard if the same thing was said about three kings before Jesus in words that weren’t simply attributed to the narrator, but to Yahweh himself?
It’s about reinforcing power
Of course, to a Christian nationalist who stands on the authority of the inerrant decrees of an all-powerful king, none of these facts matter. Because reality is a top-down hierarchy of absolute power demanding absolute submission with the threat of absolute violence, there is no wrestling with God to be had here. There is simply the bending of the knee by becoming a military commander if you’re a man, or becoming a stay-at-home perfumer, baker or cook if you’re a woman.
This is why justice, for Christian nationalists and all hierarchical forms of Christianity, is retributive. That’s how ancient empires worked. As Stiles said, those guys were cruel. But unfortunately, rather than reconsidering his assumptions about kingship and revelation, he chose to feed the Christian nationalist passion for retribution by threatening Barker with violent punishment for not bending the knee.
Abuse coverups are due to attempts to maintain hierarchy
No matter what their theological distinctions are from one another, the Christian nationalist leaders of today tend to promote authoritarian hierarchies that include gender-specific roles and violent retribution against those who won’t submit. They also belong to denominations that are caught in sexual abuse coverups.
This is not a coincidence. Of course, they’d also point to examples in Hollywood of men sexually abusing women. So they’d argue abuse is not caused by their worldview. But they have more in common with these male Hollywood executives than they’d like to admit.
Whether religious or irreligious, these are men who believe the universe is structured in a way that places them above others and makes them entitled to the service of women. Justice to them is a hierarchy. And they’re at the top.
Whenever an allegation of abuse comes up, to make things right would be to maintain or restore the hierarchy. It’s making sure women stay in their place as the perfumers, cooks and bakers, and men stay in their place along the chain of command. If anyone threatens that hierarchy, they are silenced, shamed, threatened or ignored. Those who are abused are believed only if those in charge refusing to listen might threaten the hierarchy.
So of course, Stiles is a big supporter of C.J. Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Churches, despite the sexual abuse coverups they’ve been involved with.
Redefining love of God as love of neighbor
For an atheist like Baker, loving God and loving neighbor are incompatible. He told Stiles, “If you love the Lord your God with all your might, you cannot love your neighbor as yourself. You’re putting God in front of your neighbor.”
And while I agree with much of what Baker said in his debate with Stiles, this is where we could use some nuance to bring clarity to our current conversations about authoritarian Christianity.
“In a reality of wholeness and universal belonging, loving God is demonstrated by one’s love for their neighbor.”
If love of God and neighbor are defined as separate ideas in a hierarchical reality, then Baker is correct. Loving God would have to be prioritized over loving neighbor. But in a reality of wholeness and universal belonging, loving God is demonstrated by one’s love for their neighbor. In this world, everyone lives and moves and has their being in God. Thus, to offer a drink to your neighbor is to offer a drink to God and to withhold a drink from your neighbor is to withhold a drink from God.
This isn’t a novel, progressive, post-truth concept. It’s the teaching of Jesus.
But both ideas are present in the Bible. God is presented both as a hierarchical king and as a universal presence.
The question Christians face today is how to hold in tension the identity of God and the nature of the Bible. If Christians double down on promoting the idea of God as the highest king who demands loyalty to gender roles in the home and in society, then Christian nationalism and abuses of authority will continue to infect the church.
But if Christians can have the faith to open their grip on God’s identity and on the Bible, then questions, deconstruction and loss of control will become inevitable. But perhaps in removing the walls, Christian nationalism will die and the face to face love of neighbor could begin to grow.
Rick Pidcock
Rick Pidcock is a 2004 graduate of Bob Jones University, with a bachelor of arts degree in Bible. He’s a freelance writer based in South Carolina and a former Clemons Fellow with BNG. He completed a master of arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and produces music under the artist name Provoke Wonder. Follow his blog at www.rickpidcock.com.