Saving American Christianity from the idolatry of religious nationalism requires the creation of a church untainted by MAGA conservatism and its lust for racial and political dominance, according to Sojourners founder Jim Wallis.
The new creation would be comprised mostly of Christians accustomed to embracing theological and racial diversity and willing to evangelize those given over to white supremacist ideology, Wallis said in a webinar hosted by Robert P. Jones, president of Public Religion Research Institute.
“It’s called a remnant church,” said Wallis, director of the Georgetown University Center on Faith and Justice and author of a new book, The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy.
“What would a remnant church look like? I don’t think it will ever be a majority of white Christians — I’ll just say it. But there’s a whole younger generation, some older, but a much younger generation of white believers who are ready to join with Black and brown church leaders and literally make together a new American church,” Wallis said.
Such a movement is desperately needed to heal the moral and spiritual wounds white Christian nationalism has inflicted on the American gospel witness, he added. “Heresy is what draws Christians away from Christ. And that’s what we’re facing now. Jesus was suffering identity theft when those who marched and took over the Capitol (on January 6) shouted his name or held Christian flags along with their confederate flags.”
“Heresy is what draws Christians away from Christ. And that’s what we’re facing now.”
PRRI polling has shown acceptance of Christian nationalist ideology to be on the rise in the United States, Jones said. The ideology has become a majority position for 55% of self-identified Republicans and for two-thirds of white evangelical Protestants. About 30% of adults in the U.S. identify as either adherents or sympathizers of Christian nationalism.
It has become dominant enough to pose a serious threat to democracy and belief alike, Wallis said. “You have political leaders who do want to bring down democracy, and you have religious leaders who are trying to help them do that.”
Driving the movement is “America’s original sin,” an entrenched form of racism often expressed through “voter suppression, gerrymandering, intimidation and violent threats,” he added. “But on an even deeper level, this is a battle between our better angels and our worst demons. America’s worst demons of race run very, very deep.”
It’s important that Christians understand political activism alone will not protect American Christianity from the influence of white Christian nationalism, Wallis said. “They have got to see that their faith is at stake in all this. If the church comes down on the wrong side of this and supports this militant Christian white nationalism, we’re going to lose a whole generation of young people who see what we’re doing and that we are just using religion to bless hate.”
“We have to disciple people out of whiteness.”
Jones responded that Christian nationalism is “the beating heart of the MAGA movement” which many of its adherents simply cannot see — and which he did not see growing up Southern Baptist in the deep South.
“I loved Jesus growing up and spent a lot of time thinking about Jesus,” he recalled. “And it had absolutely no hold on the way I thought about racism or my own awareness of the way Christian churches had been complicit in white supremacy all the way back. So how do we break through that?”
It will take something akin to a revival movement to break through the cultural conformity and racial grievance of white Christian nationalism, Wallis said. “We have to disciple people out of whiteness and be clear that we are not finding some mushy middle, or some centrist bridge building where we’re all feeling good about things. Every revival movement — new Catholic orders, evangelical revivals, abolitionist revivals — they are all finally about bringing people back to Jesus. That’s what they’re all about. And what all of them have had at the core is that faith and justice are inseparable.”
The United States and the American church face a “kairos moment” requiring courageous choices and actions as momentous changes unfold, Wallis said. At 75, his response this year will include a multi-city, town hall-style book tour designed to expose the dangers of Christian nationalism.
“This is a takeover. It’s a political takeover. It’s a theological takeover. It’s a spiritual takeover. They’re trying to do a coup on the country. They’re doing a coup in the church.”
