“It’s time for a theological confrontation,” according to one of the nation’s foremost scholars of Christian nationalism.
Matthew Taylor, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Center on Faith and Justice, is promoting his new book published last week. Defying Tyrants argues that Jesus and the early church were deeply anti-authoritarian.
Matthew Taylor
To promote the book, Taylor published a Substack explaining the “primal theological scream” he believes is required for Christians to repudiate a “world of Christian antichrists” including Donald Trump and others in his orbit.
“I believe it is high time we had this theological confrontation,” he said. “We American Christians who remain loyal to the way of Jesus must ask ourselves: Does not righteous anger burn within you when you hear the name of Jesus in the mouths of these slanderers? Don’t you want to defend the Jesus you love? I have reached a personal breaking point on this front.”
The result, he said, is this book.
“Defying Tyrants calls Christians back to the truth of the gospel: The model and teachings of Jesus summon us not to seize political power and impose our will, but to give up the quest for worldly power over others and instead care for the people on the margins of society: the poor, the migrants, the naked, the blind, the lame, the imprisoned, the hungry, the outcast. Jesus humanized every human being he encountered, offering them dignity, healing, nourishment and hope. Following Jesus is a campaign of rehumanization and concern for every human.”
However, Jesus was not apolitical, “nor did he merely bless those at the margins,” Taylor wrote. “He was also a deeply anti-authoritarian figure who challenged the tyrants of his day with his idea of the kingdom of God. Jesus denounced Roman tyranny and offered instead an egalitarian vision of humanity without hierarchy of power or privilege.
“In the final week of his life, Jesus staged a confrontation with the Roman Empire that ended with him on a cross outside Jerusalem, executed as an enemy of the state. Following in the wake of their crucified, insurrectionist Lord, the early church had a steely spine before Roman persecution because they were committed to the anti-hierarchical kingdom of God that Jesus preached.”
The new book, he said, is a “Bible-forward confrontation with Christian nationalism, Christian supremacy and the vision of Christian power that has conquered so much of the American church.”
And he claims the early Christians called people like today’s Christian nationalists “antichrists.”
As evidence of those deserving that label today, Taylor writes about “our self-delusional president” misappropriating Scripture to support his politics and White House adviser Paula White comparing Trump to Jesus and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth misusing Scripture in calling soldiers to put on the “full armor of God” and Vice President JD Vance “bearing false witness about the Iran war and rebuking his own pope for questioning whether the war is just.”
Taylor also is the author of The Violent Take It by Force and Scripture People. He holds a Ph.D. from Georgetown University and a master of arts degree from Fuller Theological Seminary
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