Christian Nationalism Roundup
Cottage Readers Summer Requests
A few weeks ago, I asked the paid Cottage community which essays they’d like to see again this August. Because who doesn’t love summer reading?
Much to my surprise one of the most frequent responses was to repost my pieces on Christian Nationalism!
In the summer of 2022, I wrote three essays on the subject. On September 14, 2022, I sent them all out in a single post with discussion questions that readers could use in book groups or congregational discussions. That September “roundup” post is below with links to the entire series.
With the Trump indictments, the Republican primaries, and the renewed conversation about the January 6 insurrection, these posts remain informative. Especially important is essay #2, “Bad Blood,” on theology and Civil War.
As a special bonus, I’ve included a link to a Third Thursday conversation (the monthly online gathering for paid subscribers) with Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family and the new New York Times bestselling book, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War. You may have also seen his Netflix series, The Family — or heard him interviewed on major news networks and radio shows.
“UNDERSTANDING CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM,” from September 2022:
I got an email this week from a reader letting me know that his adult education group was using the recent Christian nationalism posts from The Cottage as a multi-week study leading up to the fall elections.
What a great idea! Until I read his note, however, I didn’t realize that I’d written a post each month since July on the subject. It certainly wasn’t a planned series. It just happened in conjunction with the news — and the intense interest in the subject of Christian nationalism.
He inspired me to turn the Christian nationalism essays into a three-part discussion curriculum that you can use.
Today’s post links all three of the essays in a single newsletter. I hope this will be helpful to you. Some may want to use these posts as my friend’s congregation is — for others that may be too controversial and you might want to read them in a small group. I do suggest that you engage them with others if possible.
I invite you to re-read them as a group — and with a group. I’ve enclosed some discussion questions for you to think about the ideas presented in each essay as well.
This three-part exploration of Christian nationalism involves some technical terminology from sociology, theology, and history. It isn’t exhaustive (there’s much more that can be said), but it is provocative, thoughtful, and timely. And, since the essays are short, you needn’t read an entire book to engage important issues.
Of course, you may agree or disagree with various points and interpretations. That’s expected! Talking about a subject is often a good way toward greater understanding — and moderating fear we might have. Each of these posts comes from my own wrestling with these difficult days.
ESSAY #1: CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM EVERYWHERE?
In this essay, I explore the term “Christian nationalism” and suggest we might need to make finer distinctions in how we define political impulses in white evangelicalism.
For discussion: What do you think about the central claim of this essay? “Both of these things are true: America is not a Christian nation. And the United States was shaped by Protestantism.” Why is it important to understand this paradoxical proposition? What might it mean for politics to grasp this history?
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ESSAY #2: BAD BLOOOD
In recent weeks, talk of Civil War has skyrocketed. This essay looks at the connection between political conflict and theology that lends itself toward violence. This was one of the most widely read, shared, and discussed posts of the year at The Cottage.
For discussion: Do you worry that the central claim of Christianity involves blood and violence? What do you make of this statement?: “Not every Christian who holds to the theory of blood-atonement is a Christian nationalist, but Christian nationalism depends on this theology and can’t survive without it.” How might Christian theology, churches, and preachers address this? Where do you see these ideas in the news? Have you ever considered how bad theology might inspire political violence?
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ESSAY #3: BAD HISTORY
Although most political commentators haven’t paid attention, white evangelical politics has been supported by and is twinned with a particular view of providential history. This essay returns to the theme of “Christian nation-ism” vs. “Christian nationalism” and explores it through history.
For discussion: What do you make of the popularity of a book like The Light and the Glory? And what does it mean that two best-selling histories — The Light and the Glory and A People’s History of the United States — seem to have helped create the political divisions today. Why is history so often a contentious subject? Why do people fight over the past? Do you know someone who believes in this providential history?
BONUS VIDEO:
This video was not part of the original curriculum post. It was a live conversation from May 26, 2023.
INSPIRATION
If you understand your own place and its intricacy and the possibility of affection and good care of it, then imaginatively you recognize that possibility for other places and other people. If you wish well to your own place and you recognize that your own place is part of the world, then this requires a well-wishing toward the whole world. In return you hope for the world's well-wishing to your place.
This is a different impulse from the impulse of nationalism. This is what I would call patriotism, the love of a home country that's usually much smaller than a nation. Nationalism always implies competition, always the wish that your nation might thrive even at the expense of other nations. Patriotism is the love of a home place or a home country that recognizes the obligation of charity toward other places and other people, and it recognizes that the prosperity of your place need not come at the expense of the prosperity of other places. There is a generosity, a charity, in what I recognize is the true patriotism, which is not necessarily implied by nationalism.
— Wendell Berry
When fascism comes to America, it will enter on the winds of our silence and indifference and complacency. And on that day, one hundred thousand poets will gather. In book stores and libraries, bars and cafes, in their houses and apartments, in schools and on street corners, they will gather. In Albania, Bangladesh, Botswana, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Finland, Guatemala, Hungary, Macedonia, Malawi, Qatar, crying, laughing, screaming. They will wrap the sad music of humanity in bits of word cloth and hang them, like prayers, on the tree of life.
— Terry Ehret, from “How Fascism Will Come,” please read the entire piece
Thank you, Diana, for posting this series. I will study it and may use it for a conversation in my church. Since the Disciples General Assembly where we passed a resolution condemning Christian Nationalism, congregations are urged to educate themselves on this subject.
Thank you Diana. My work is concerned with the construction of the carceral state in Jim Crow SC, a harrowing yet textbook case of American fascism and the end product of another trinitarian collaboration between vigilantes, law enforcement, and the judiciary. I can think of no better way to succinctly describe its essence than through Haque: "Ultimately, fascism in all its forms is about the [self-declared] pure and true having the power of life and death over the impure and faithless."