Why the White House’s Smithsonian Review Is Also About Christian Nationalism

They are seizing the chance to propagandize the past.

News from the White House keeps going from bad to worse, and it shows no sign of slowing down. I really need your help to keep articles like this coming. Will you become a paid subscriber today?

---

The words towered over me in gold letters. Etched on the wall like a prophecy:

“We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake… the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed, and its crimes denounced.” — Frederick Douglass, 1852

I was standing in the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The murmur of the other visitors faded to a dull hum as I gazed up at the words.

They thundered across time calling for the courage to the speak the truth—the whole truth—about this nation we call united.

That’s what the NMAAHC and other Smithsonian museums do. They expose hypocrisy. Call out lies. Dispel myths. Invite us to remember rightly.

That refusal to sell a sanitized past is exactly why the White House wants to bring it and other Smithsonian museums under political review ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary.

Of course, the White House review of the Smithsonian museums is about political control of the past.

What most people will miss, though, is that it’s also about the Christian nationalist war on history.

The White House Orders a “Review”

In a letter to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch, III, three top White House officials said they want to ensure the museums present the “unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story” and align with the president’s executive order on “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

The review will cover everything from exhibition text and online content to curatorial processes, the use of collections, and even artist grants.

“This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the president’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”

The sub-text of “divisive” and “partisan” narratives is the White House wants a version of the past that leaves no room to discuss the truths that make America look bad.

The entire letter is itself divisive and partisan because it choose political propaganda over historical truth-telling that might actually lead to repair and reconciliation.

Every accusation is a confession.

White Christian Nationalism Requires a Virtuous Past

White Christian nationalism requires a virtuous past to sell its story of U.S. history.

The ideology claims that the United States is a nation chosen by God and morally upright from its founding.

That blessing arises, in part, because its people adhered to a narrow, fundamentalist version of Christian morality.

While they would admit U.S. history is pockmarked by injustices, they minimize them.

In this telling, slavery, genocide, and segregation are acknowledged only as unfortunate missteps along an otherwise noble path.

The main storyline is not oppression, but progress. Not errors, but exceptionalism.

That narrative only works if the past appears as an unbroken march toward virtue. There is no room for the brutal realities of internment, lynching, race riots, labor exploitation, or mass incarceration.

Those truths reveal a morally compromised origin that would undermine the white Christian nationalist claim to divine favor and authority.

If U.S. history is honest, their theology falls apart.

Rather than change their theology to fit the truth, they twist the truth to fit their theology.

They whitewash, mythologize, and propagandize the past.

That’s why they attack schools, books, museums, and historians. If they can change the story, they can keep the theology, the mythology, intact.

If they control the story, they control the identity. And if they control the identity, they control the future.

This review of Smithsonian museums is an attempt to bring institutions that are accountable to scholarly standards under political control. An attempt to replace peer-reviewed, evidence-based history with a state-approved narrative.

The timing is not incidental.

As America approaches its 250th anniversary, white Christian nationalists are seizing the chance to enshrine their version of history into the national consciousness.

Conscience of the State

That’s why I launched Conscience of the State: A Faithful Response to the Christian Nationalist War on History.

It is a yearlong campaign to push back against the lies and the watering down of history perpetrated by the white Christian nationalist agenda.

It includes written articles, social media posts, and soon, a video series.

Subscribe to my Substack for weekly content and breaking news about the past, the attacks on memory, and the battle to preserve the truth.

The best solution to bad history is true history.

We must not let white Christian nationalists have the final word.

And as Douglass said, we still need “the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake” — not to destroy, but to shake the foundations of falsehood and let the truth stand firm.

Is there a museum exhibit—Smithsonian or otherwise—that has stuck with you for the power of the truth it told? Let us know in the comments.

Read my other Conscience of the State articles…