Office Hours: Examining White Christian Nationalism in the Cabinet
Will politicians approve officials who want to force their religious beliefs on the nation?
Community is truly the only way we’re going to navigate our way through the coming political regime. This article invites you to an online community event, but starting in January it will be an exclusive benefit for paid subscribers. Become a paid supporter today.
I’m watching very closely who president-elect Donald Trump proposes for key Cabinet positions.
While nearly all are problematic there is one who especially concerns me because of his ties to white Christian nationalism—Pete Hegseth, the current pick for Secretary of Defense.
Hegseth has ties to the extreme far-right Christian network championed by Doug Wilson.
Wilson was a founder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) that, among other beliefs, advocates for replacing public schools with classical Christian education, often portraying public education as inherently anti-Christian.
The CREC is highly patriarchal and supports challenges to church-state separation under the guise of religious liberty.
According to reports, Hegseth attends a CREC church and sends his children to a classical Christian academy aligned with CREC beliefs.
Now he’s the top candidate to lead the entire U.S. military.
I’ll be talking in much more detail about this appointment and the threat of white Christian Nationalism in the White House during my next “Office Hours.”
Office Hours is a monthly online gathering for my paid Substack subscribers where I talk about current events, reflect on race and faith, and have a dialogue with our community.
I’ll also be talking about my first picture book (4-7 years old) and my next young readers book (8-12 years old), both based on The Spirit of Justice and both coming out on January 7.
Pre-order HERE.
I’ll also be announcing a BOOK GIVEAWAY!
Aaaand…you’ll be the first to hear me talk about my NEXT book. I’m finishing up the manuscript now, and I can’t wait to tell you more about it!
Going forward, this will be a subscriber-only event, but you can join us for FREE this month.
All you have to do is subscribe for free to this Substack, and I’ll email you the Zoom link on the day of the event.
Join us on Thursday, December 12 at 8 pm ET for Office Hours.
Thank you, Dr. Tisby. I appreciate how steadfast you have been in the midst of the political and spiritual upheaval this country is experiencing. Since the election, to maintain my peace, I have limited my social media engagement, and I have stopped watching the major tv news media. I consider this a time of personal, spiritual reflection, and recalibration. Your voice remains the calm one in the wilderness. I look forward to your footnotes; they lift my spirit and strengthen my resolve to be stronger in the face of adversity in 2025. I also greatly appreciate this loving, insightful community you have formed. Therefore, I pray for you daily as I know it is difficult to deal with your own grief (aren’t we all mourning?) while shepherding others. May God continue to keep you and bless you, and may His grace continue to shine upon you.
This is a little off-topic but I wanted to share in case I can't make it to Office Hours tonight. (I see I'm not the only one in this group with musical activities going on this week!)
What I wanted to share: this past weekend I attended the Pittsburgh Symphony, where the highlight piece was the Requiem of Faure'. But just before it, they performed a piece I'd never heard of, written circa 1995 by Adolphus Hailstork: "Lachrymosa", subtitled "Tears: 1919". It made use of snippets of African-American spirituals to evoke the tragedies of 1919 when Black soldiers started to come home from fighting overseas in World War One. This is a piece of American history I'd never heard about -- and something I think we should all be aware of. I don't need to say how powerful it was to hear the Requiem immediately following.
FWIW our orchestra's music director is Austrian and a devout Roman Catholic -- the orchestra people say he attends Mass daily, even when on tour. His spirituality certainly comes through in the music, and in interviews whenever he talks about interpretation. Just wanted to let you know about one more voice making the story heard.