Just to get the conversation started..... as a former church organist/choir director, I sometimes used to get requests for "military-sounding" hymns and songs. My response would be "don't wrap the Cross up in the flag -- it makes it impossible for people to worship God without also worshipping the country, and worshipping a country is idolatry."
In churches I've seen where White Christian Nationalism tolerated or promoted, that's what the leadership of the church is doing: presenting the Cross/the Bible inextricably bound up with the American flag. The end result is the people in the pew, if they're going to worship at all, end up worshipping both. It's a damnable betrayal of trust.
This was definitely not what I was expecting! Thank you for this thoughtful examination. I would love to read a Pt 2 with some practical ideas of things white Christians can do to expose the fallacies of white Christian nationalism. (Or maybe fellow commenters have ideas?)
The book "Taking America Back for God" identifies white Christian Nationalism adherents on a spectrum rather than a binary "you are" or "you are not" a WCN. I think it's helpful to determine how we spend our energy when seeking to persuade.
Maybe you read my mind as I've asked myself in the last two days the very same question. And I immediately began to think of how we can disentangle Christianity from nationalism. Fortunately, your reflection came alone and I believe illuminated the the problem and a hard but truthful answer.
I really like your concept of “permission structure”. I think that is a very useful category for discernment. I have seen that playing out in the history of proslavery arguments – building an ideological structural framework (a “stronghold?”) using what at the time was at hand to provide authority for the structure – aspects of Christendom, but later also biological racial theories.
I’ve understood white Christian Nationalism at its core to be a “no-other-gods-alongside Me” idolatry.
There are precursors that go way back. There is the self-understanding of some Protestant colonialism as being a people establishing a New Israel, conceiving of what eventually became America as a “special” nation or one in a covenantal relationship with God like ancient Israel. There was the eventual concept of Manifest Destiny flowing out of these earlier visions, and the even newer identity of America as a “redeemer nation”.
The racist component has always been there, justifying the forms of entitlement that special nation/people status entails in some people’s minds. There was the entitlement to land, labor and genocide of original inhabitants because they were some kind of permanent “heathen-ish” people. There was the entitlement to Africans for labor and slave-trading wealth for basically the same reasons at first. Further down the historical lane there has been entitlement to other’s land and resources continentally and eventually globally, all in the name of this religious-political-economic Behemoth that wants to wrap itself in a mantle of righteousness. The newer expressions trade on the older established ones. It’s the same impulse with up-to-date-language.
I know this is very cursory and could and has been said far better by others.
It has been a failure of Christian discipleship in not being willing to interrogate these realities and discern what faithfulness is. Over decades of bringing these kinds of things up within church circles, I’ve seen the hostility they can engender. Or the indifference. Even if you bring up things like slavery and racism, they have to be addressed as “mistakes” we’ve progressed from. You’re not allowed to question the nature of America’s self-understanding. That lack of permission to interrogate the existence and nature of the “permission structure” is a sure exposure of an idolatry.
Thank you for faithfully keeping to your teaching “plow” and helping to provide much needed discernment.
I have started reading Taking America Back for God and I agree that white Christian Nationalists fall on a spectrum. At one extreme are people that switch to churches like Floodgate, but perhaps more dangerous are those that go to my church, where I am happy to say the pastors are excellent about keeping to the Bible and staying out of politics, but since I have read that many people watch around 40 hours of partisan media for every one hour in church, the true teaching from the Bible that the pastor tries to impart are overshadowed. I think of pastors like Robert Jeffress as wolves in sheep's clothing, and the average churchgoer who falls for this false teaching as a lost sheep who may not even realize he/she is lost. But true Christians have a duty to speak out, out of love for these lost sheep, and because they tarnish the reputation of Christ in a watching world.
Just to get the conversation started..... as a former church organist/choir director, I sometimes used to get requests for "military-sounding" hymns and songs. My response would be "don't wrap the Cross up in the flag -- it makes it impossible for people to worship God without also worshipping the country, and worshipping a country is idolatry."
In churches I've seen where White Christian Nationalism tolerated or promoted, that's what the leadership of the church is doing: presenting the Cross/the Bible inextricably bound up with the American flag. The end result is the people in the pew, if they're going to worship at all, end up worshipping both. It's a damnable betrayal of trust.
Whoah! Those are bold requests from the parishioners. Equally bold response, though!
This was definitely not what I was expecting! Thank you for this thoughtful examination. I would love to read a Pt 2 with some practical ideas of things white Christians can do to expose the fallacies of white Christian nationalism. (Or maybe fellow commenters have ideas?)
I'd recommend checking out Christians Against Christian Nationalism and the resources of Faithful America as well as Vote Common Good (here's a podcast I did with Doug Pagitt, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vote-common-good-with-doug-pagitt/id1460240056?i=1000585415213)
The book "Taking America Back for God" identifies white Christian Nationalism adherents on a spectrum rather than a binary "you are" or "you are not" a WCN. I think it's helpful to determine how we spend our energy when seeking to persuade.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/taking-america-back-for-god-christian-nationalism-in-the-united-states-andrew-l-whitehead/7787301?aid=79599&ean=9780190057886&listref=jemar-s-bookshelf&
Maybe you read my mind as I've asked myself in the last two days the very same question. And I immediately began to think of how we can disentangle Christianity from nationalism. Fortunately, your reflection came alone and I believe illuminated the the problem and a hard but truthful answer.
Thanks for sharing, Andy. Be sure to check out Christians Against Christian Nationalism!
I really like your concept of “permission structure”. I think that is a very useful category for discernment. I have seen that playing out in the history of proslavery arguments – building an ideological structural framework (a “stronghold?”) using what at the time was at hand to provide authority for the structure – aspects of Christendom, but later also biological racial theories.
I’ve understood white Christian Nationalism at its core to be a “no-other-gods-alongside Me” idolatry.
There are precursors that go way back. There is the self-understanding of some Protestant colonialism as being a people establishing a New Israel, conceiving of what eventually became America as a “special” nation or one in a covenantal relationship with God like ancient Israel. There was the eventual concept of Manifest Destiny flowing out of these earlier visions, and the even newer identity of America as a “redeemer nation”.
The racist component has always been there, justifying the forms of entitlement that special nation/people status entails in some people’s minds. There was the entitlement to land, labor and genocide of original inhabitants because they were some kind of permanent “heathen-ish” people. There was the entitlement to Africans for labor and slave-trading wealth for basically the same reasons at first. Further down the historical lane there has been entitlement to other’s land and resources continentally and eventually globally, all in the name of this religious-political-economic Behemoth that wants to wrap itself in a mantle of righteousness. The newer expressions trade on the older established ones. It’s the same impulse with up-to-date-language.
I know this is very cursory and could and has been said far better by others.
It has been a failure of Christian discipleship in not being willing to interrogate these realities and discern what faithfulness is. Over decades of bringing these kinds of things up within church circles, I’ve seen the hostility they can engender. Or the indifference. Even if you bring up things like slavery and racism, they have to be addressed as “mistakes” we’ve progressed from. You’re not allowed to question the nature of America’s self-understanding. That lack of permission to interrogate the existence and nature of the “permission structure” is a sure exposure of an idolatry.
Thank you for faithfully keeping to your teaching “plow” and helping to provide much needed discernment.
I have started reading Taking America Back for God and I agree that white Christian Nationalists fall on a spectrum. At one extreme are people that switch to churches like Floodgate, but perhaps more dangerous are those that go to my church, where I am happy to say the pastors are excellent about keeping to the Bible and staying out of politics, but since I have read that many people watch around 40 hours of partisan media for every one hour in church, the true teaching from the Bible that the pastor tries to impart are overshadowed. I think of pastors like Robert Jeffress as wolves in sheep's clothing, and the average churchgoer who falls for this false teaching as a lost sheep who may not even realize he/she is lost. But true Christians have a duty to speak out, out of love for these lost sheep, and because they tarnish the reputation of Christ in a watching world.
I very much agree--the fruit reveals the root. Thank you for reading!