I have, in the past, posted on the subject of Christian nationalism, its participation in the January 6 attack on the Capitol and its connection to white evangelicalism and white supremacy.  Today, many Christians, including evangelicals, have become familiar with the idea of Christian nationalism and are trying to distance themselves from it.  At the same time, some prominent Christian nationalists, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert have accepted the label and have tried to legitimize and normalize it.  In fact, the extent to which Christian nationalist rhetoric is impacting national debates is becoming more and more visible.  In this post, I will highlight a few meaningful examples.

Governor DeSantis launched his 2024 presidential run in a Twitter event which, while widely described as full of glitches, added more than 8 million dollars to his campaign funds in the first 24 hours.  I discussed his Christian nationalist credentials in a previous post, including his gross misuse of biblical quotes to identify the political left with the devil in his alleged war against evil.

DeSantis is proud of his accomplishments in Florida and wants to make the state a model for the nation.  However, while MAGA Republicans applaud his handling of the governorship, it cannot be said that his efforts are meant to help all Florida residents.  A story by Associated Press explains why, under DeSantis, “Florida isn’t Florida anymore” for the average Floridian, for teachers, for parents, for library personnel, for LGBTQ+ people, for Disney employees, etc.

From a legislative perspective, as reported in a recent article in the New York Times,

“He and a pliant Florida Legislature have passed contentious laws that have excited the right and angered many Democrats, including Black and L.G.B.T.Q. people, students and abortion-rights supporters in Florida. The bills seem to reflect Mr. DeSantis’s plan to run to the right of Mr. Trump in the primary, which could leave him vulnerable with moderates and independents.”

The article provides a summary of the governor’s latest successes:

“In the most recent legislative session alone, Florida Republicans banned abortion after six weeks of pregnancy; expanded the use of the death penalty; allowed Floridians to carry concealed guns without a permit; restricted gender-transition care for minors; limited teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation; defunded diversity, equity and inclusion programs at public colleges; and shielded records of his own scrutinized travel from the public.”

As typical of Christian nationalists, DeSantis claims to fight for freedom in Florida.  But his concept of freedom necessarily leads to the suppression of freedom for those who do not share his cultural heritage.  That is reflected in his authoritarian tendencies: his willingness to push the limits of his authority as a governor, including the enactment of new laws meant to silence or punish those who disagree with him.  His fight with Disney is only one among many examples of this behavior.  As stated in the New York Times article,

“He has picked a long-running fight with Disney, one of Florida’s largest employers and a canny political adversary. He removed a local prosecutor from office in what records show was a decision motivated by politics, installed his allies at a public liberal arts university in a bid to transform it into a bastion of conservative thought, said he would reject a high school Advanced Placement course on African American studies for ‘indoctrinating’ students and had state law enforcement officers monitor holiday drag shows for lewd behavior.”

What makes his approach particularly frightening is his claim to be involved in a religious war that must be won by any means necessary.  An article published by Paul Blumenthal in Huffpost reports his words on the day he launched his campaign:

“’The woke mind virus is basically a form of cultural Marxism,’ DeSantis said in an appearance on Fox News the same day he announced his campaign. ‘At the end of the day, it’s an attack on the truth. And because it’s a war on truth, I think we have no choice but to wage a war on woke.’”

Of course, if the governor knew the truth about his professed religion, he would know that followers of Christ are called to love others and be inclusive.  That is, in fact, how Christianity emerged from Judaism as a religion that welcomed Jews and Gentiles.  He would also know, among other things, that Jesus rejected the death penalty (John 8:7) and taught his disciples to reject violence.  Jesus would have never supported the Second Amendment: his disciples had no need for weapons since they were told not to repay evil with evil, even under unfair persecution.  They were to be “sheep among wolves” (Matthew 10:16).  They were not expected to turn into wolves at any point in time, but were to use peaceful means in their relentless pursuit of the kingdom of God.

The bills mentioned above are the continuation of the anti-woke agenda that has characterized the DeSantis governorship.  His fight against diversity has been reflected in his laws banning the teaching of critical race theory and suppressing discussion of LGBTQ topics in schools, his suppression of the Black vote through gerrymandering, his banning of textbooks that express empathy for minorities, his anti-rioting law that limits the right to protest, etc.  But the truths he defends are not evident to anybody who does not share his worldview.  As Blumenthal explains,

“Broad swathes of DeSantis’ anti-woke agenda — from restrictions on the teaching of social science about race in colleges and universities, to bans on corporate diversity training to limits on public protests — have been temporarily suspended by judges who found them very likely to be in violation of the first and 14th amendments.

In suspending these laws, federal judges called them ‘positively dystopian’ and the defenses presented in court ‘wholly at odds with accepted constitutional principles.’ The suspended provisions of the laws may yet be upheld as they move through appeals courts and, possibly, U.S. Supreme Court review, but, at the moment, DeSantis’ offensive against the ‘woke mind virus’ has been partially reversed.”

Clearly, the truths DeSantis stands for demand a different understanding of the constitutional principles that guide the nation.  That must be why he announced on Fox News that he will focus, as president, on “reconstitutionalizing the administrative state” and will “use Article II power to bring the administrative state to heel.”  Article II defines the role and authority of the executive branch.  DeSantis is telling us he will, if he becomes president, use the power of the presidency in ways never seen before to advance his agenda.  Scary thought!

Regarding the practice of banning books, Jamelle Bouie notes that there is a precedent that goes back to slavery days, before the Civil War, as Southerners began to reject textbooks written by writers from New England who failed to recognize the importance of slavery as a southern institution.  Bouie, referring to the work of historian Donald Yacovone, writes:

“Part of the reason for Southern elite frustration, and the reason they wanted history textbooks tailored to their views, was the rise of pro-slavery ideology among slaveholders whose lives and livelihoods were tied to the institution. It helped as well that slavery had become (against the expectations of many Americans, including the nation’s founders) incredibly lucrative in the first decades of the 19th century. By the time Yacovone begins his narrative, Southern slaveholders had moved from the regretful acceptance of slavery that characterized earlier generations of slaveholding elites to an embrace of slavery as a ‘positive good’ — in John C. Calhoun’s infamous words — and the only basis on which to build a functional and prosperous society.”

According to Bouie, Yacovone summarizes the argument made by J. W. Morgan, a Virginian contributor to the Southern journal De Bow’s Review, who called for censorship of Northern history textbooks that contained any hint of antislavery belief:

“Books that did not praise the ‘doctrines’ that ‘we now believe’ should be banned and never come ‘within the range of juvenile reading.’ Morgan damned current textbooks as flying the ‘black piratical ensign of abolitionism.’ Continued use of such works would only corrupt the minds of youth and ‘spread dangerous heresies among us.’ Even spelling books could not be trusted, as they contained covert condemnations of ‘our peculiar institutions.’”

In this statement, the “doctrines” that “we now believe” and “our peculiar institutions” are, of course, in favor of slavery, and abolitionism is the evil that must be destroyed.  Morgan, like DeSantis today, was promoting truths that are not obvious to reasonable people.

On May 2, 2023, New York Times reporters published an article that revealed a newly discovered text message Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, had written and sent to one of his producers in the hours after Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.  The reporters believe this text message, after the leadership of Fox became aware of it, set up a chain of events that led to the firing of Carlson.

As a Fox News host, Carlson had a huge, loyal audience eager to be indoctrinated by his white supremacist interpretations of events, including his focus on white replacement theory.  The Times reporters summarize his work at Fox News as follows:

“A recurring theme of his show during the six years that it ran in prime time on Fox News was the displacement of white Americans by people of color. Mr. Carlson often framed topics in the news as part of a larger struggle between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ with immigrants and other marginalized groups steadily and surely taking from whites what had long been theirs: political and cultural power in the United States.

He attacked Black social justice activists and portrayed immigrants from Central America as a blight on the nation. He said in 2018 that immigrants make the country ‘dirtier.’

In the aftermath of a mass shooting in El Paso at the hands of a gunman who cited white supremacist beliefs in his manifesto, Mr. Carlson declared on his show that white supremacy was ‘not a real problem,’ likening it to a conspiracy theory.”

The text message revealed by the Times reporters is reproduced here:

Tucker Carlson January 7, 2021 — 04:18:04 PM UTC

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington. A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be. The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?

Of interest to me is A. O. Scott’s analysis of the message.  Scott, who calls Carlson a cable-news demagogue, writes:

“At first, Carlson is right where you’d expect him to be: on the side of the attackers, rooting them on toward homicide, even as he finds their behavior ‘dishonorable.’ ‘It’s not how white men fight,’ he says.

That is a jaw-dropping sentence — as empirically ludicrous as it is ideologically loaded. A glance at American history — taking in night riders, lynch mobs, the Tulsa race massacre of 1921 and the killings of Michael Griffith and Yusef Hawkins in New York in the 1980s, to say nothing of Jan. 6 itself — suggests that this is exactly how white men fight. Not all white men, of course, and not only white men, but white men precisely when they perceive the symbolic and material prerogatives of their whiteness to be under attack.”

Carlson watches the savage beating of the “Antifa kid” with tremendous enjoyment until, to his surprise, it occurs to him that the kid is a human being.  Scott writes:

“At stake is not the life or safety of the anonymous ‘Antifa kid,’ but rather Carlson’s own perception of himself. ‘This isn’t good for me,’ he finds himself thinking. That phrase, a syntactic echo of ‘it’s not how white men fight,’ establishes the stakes, which are not so much Carlson’s ethical probity as his racial superiority. Watching the beating, he becomes aware of what Kipling called ‘the white man’s burden’ — the duty to subjugate the supposedly lesser races without sinking to their level.”

It goes without saying that a tremendous lack of moral integrity is required to maintain this balance between the drive to subjugate other human beings and the belief in one’s own superior status.  Scott describes the conflict in Carlson’s mind:

“The race of the man being beaten isn’t specified in the text, but his otherness — his debased status relative to both his attackers and Carlson — is repeatedly emphasized. ‘The Antifa creep is a human being,’ he writes. This is not exactly an upwelling of compassion, and even so Carlson rushes to qualify it. ‘Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him, personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it.’ The ‘shoulds’ indicate that Carlson isn’t really bothered — is still actually gloating — but is aware that this reaction poses a problem.

It’s a problem because he imagines that the glee he feels at the man’s suffering aligns him not with those inflicting the suffering, but with the man himself. If he takes pleasure in watching an Antifa creep get pounded, that makes him as bad as the Antifa creep. Because that guy reduces ‘people to their politics.’”

Of course, Carlson knows nothing about the kid, and in reality, Carlson is the one who reduces people to their politics.

After the firing of Carlson, David French, a columnist who describes himself as a conservative Christian, wrote an opinion in which he reacted negatively to the outpouring of support to the TV host from right-wing Christians.  He was particularly disappointed that Tony Perkins, the president of Family Research Council, one of America’s leading Christian conservative advocacy organizations, “scorned Fox News’s decision to fire Carlson and — incredibly — also attacked Fox’s decision to fire Bill O’Reilly. These terminations (along with the departures of Glenn Beck and Megyn Kelly) were deemed evidence that Fox was turning its back on its conservative viewers, including its Christian conservative viewers.”

French noted that these Christian critics of Fox News completely disregarded the unquestionably bad behavior of the TV hosts:

“What was missing from the conversation? Any mention of the profound moral failings that cost O’Reilly his job, including at least six settlements — five for sexual harassment and one for verbal abuse — totaling approximately $45 million. Or any mention of Carlson’s own serious problems, including his serial dishonesty, his vile racism and his gross personal insult directed against a senior Fox executive. It’s a curious position for a Christian to take.

Similarly curious is the belief of other Christians, such as the popular evangelical ‘prophet’ Lance Wallnau, that Carlson was a casualty of war with the left and that his firing was a serious setback for Christian Republicans. To Wallnau, an author and a self-described futurist, Carlson was a ‘secular prophet,’ somebody ‘used by God, more powerful than a lot of preachers.’”

French expressed his consternation at the fact that Christian conservatives often fail to recognize how their political pursuits conflict with the foundational principles of their professed religion.  This is seen, in particular, in their readiness to demand virtuous behavior from their political opponents but not from their political allies:

“Within conservative circles it has always been surprisingly difficult to tie a decline in Christian political virtue to the rise of Donald Trump. What seems obvious from a distance (wait a minute — didn’t Christians use to place a premium on the importance of character in politicians, especially during Bill Clinton’s scandals?) was less obvious up close. In countless personal conversations with Christians who are staunch Republicans, I heard some variation on the same plaintive question, ‘What do you want us to do? Hand an election to Hillary Clinton? Or to Joe Biden?’”

As suggested by this statement, the conservative answer is that one must choose the lesser of two evils.  However, French explains that this excuse cannot be applied to the problem associated with Tucker Carlson:

“But the Carlson question is different, and in some ways his loyal Christian support is even more troubling. What are the ‘lesser of two evils’ or the ‘binary choice’ arguments for sitting down and devoting an hour of your life, each night, to a cruel, dishonest man, much less hailing him as a ‘secular prophet’? The more the Christian right latches on to cruel men, the more difficult it becomes to argue that the cruelty is a bug, not a feature.”

By the way, here is a Christian conservative using extremely harsh language against people who, presumably, should have been on his side.  That is a sign of the gravity of this state of affairs.  I agree with French’s assessment, but I would go even further: The Christian right is political first, and does not see New Testament Christianity as a way of life.  They profess allegiance to Christ for the purpose of going to heaven after death, but are very flexible in the way they apply New Testament principles to daily life.  But French is right when he laments that the Christian right finds itself incapable of contributing to a basic Christian calling, namely the healing of a society in trouble:

“The great tragedy is that a moment of dangerous national polarization is exactly when a truly Christian message that combines the pursuit of justice with kindness and humility would be a balm to the national soul. A time of extraordinary social isolation, when people report less companionship, less time with friends and less time with family, is exactly the time when a healthy church community can be a beacon of inclusion and hope.

But not when the right-wing pursuit of its version of justice overwhelms its commitment to kindness, much less any shred of humility. This is how the religious right becomes post-Christian. Its ‘secular prophets’ become even more influential than its Christian leaders, and it actively discards clear biblical commands for what it perceives to be the greater good.”

Here, French actually confirms my view: the secular prophets are focused on politics and dominate the thinking process.  Christian principles are an afterthought.  But I react with skepticism to French’s suggestion that the Christian right seeks “what it perceives as the greater good.”  A true Christian cannot define the “greater good” outside of Christian principles since, by definition, Christian principles guide him/her toward its pursuit.  French’s own words imply that inclusion should be part of this greater good.  The Christian right happens to reject notions of diversity and inclusion.  There is a fundamental disconnect.  Yet, French is right when he concludes his assessment:

“That’s not Christianity. It’s a primitive form of consequentialism, the idea that the morality of an action is to be judged solely by its consequences. Many Christians fear that kindness doesn’t work, so they discard it. This is how even decency itself becomes a secondary value. Aggression, not virtue, becomes the touchstone of political engagement, and anything other than aggression is seen as a sign of weakness.”

A New York Times opinion published on May 21, 2023 by Susan Stubson, a member of the Wyoming Republican party, gives an overview of the impact of Christian nationalism in Wyoming.  Stubson, who was raised as a Catholic but became an evangelical after getting married, describes her first encounter with a Christian nationalist when her husband was running for office in 2016.  A potential voter offered the following commentary to her husband’s campaign:

“As Tim and I and our boys made our way down the line, shaking hands and passing out campaign material, a burly man wearing a ‘God bless America’ T-shirt and a cross around his neck said something like, ‘He’s got my vote if he keeps those [epithet] out of office,’ using a racial slur. What followed was an uncomfortable master class in racism and xenophobia as the man decanted the reasons our country is going down the tubes. God bless America.”

Stubson later understood that the man was part of a wider movement that, among other things, strongly supported to the candidacy of Donald Trump:

“I now understand the ugliness I heard was part of a current of Christian nationalism fomenting beneath the surface. It had been there all the time. The rope line rant was a mission statement for the disaffected, the overlooked, the frightened. It was also an expression of solidarity with a candidate like Donald Trump who gave a name to a perceived enemy: people who do not look like us or share our beliefs. Immigrants are taking our guns. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. You are not safe in your home. Religious freedom is on the gallows. Vote for me.”

Stubson explains how Christian nationalism changed her white, rural, conservative community:

“Christian nationalists have hijacked both my Republican Party and my faith community by blurring the lines between church and government and in the process rebranding our state’s identity.”

This “blurring of the lines between church and government” relies, as it does in Florida, on the use of legislation to impose a worldview on the state:

“Wyoming is a ‘you do you’ state. When it’s a blinding snowstorm, the tractor’s in a ditch and we need a neighbor with a winch, our differences disappear. We don’t care what you look like or who you love. Keep a clean fence line and show up during calving season, and we’re good.

But new sheriffs in town are very much up in their neighbor’s beeswax. Legislation they have proposed seems intent on stripping us of our autonomy and our ability to make decisions for ourselves, all in the name of morality, the definition of which is unclear.”

Here as elsewhere, there is an affinity between Christian nationalism and evangelicalism, with undesirable results:

“The result is bad church and bad law. ‘God, guns and Trump’ is an omnipresent bumper sticker here, the new trinity. The evangelical church has proved to be a supplicating audience for the Christian nationalist roadshow. Indeed, it is unclear to me many Sundays whether we are hearing a sermon or a stump speech.”

Stubson explains how Christian nationalists rely on fear and invent threats in order to gather support for their movement:

“In last year’s elections, candidates running on a Christian nationalist platform used fear plus the promise of power to attract votes. Their ads warned about government overreach, religious persecution, mask mandates, threats from immigrants and election fraud. A candidate for secretary of state, an election denier named Chuck Gray, hosted at least one free screening in a church of the roundly debunked film ‘2,000 Mules,’ about alleged voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. (He won the general election unopposed and is now next in line to the governorship.)

None of those concerns were real. Our schools largely remained open during the pandemic. Businesses remained open. The border is an almost 1,000-mile drive from my home in Casper, and the foreign-born population in the state is only 3 percent. Wyoming’s violent crime rate is the lowest of any state in the West. Wyoming’s electoral process is incredibly safe. So what are we afraid of?”

Unfortunately, when government offices are taken over by people who are driven by prejudice instead of the desire to address real life issues, undesirable results should be expected:

‘The impact of this new breed of lawmakers has been swift. Wyomingites got a very real preview this past legislative session of the hazards of one-size-fits-all nationalized policies that ignore the nuances of our state. ‌Last year, maternity wards closed in two sparsely populated communities, further expanding our maternity desert. Yet in debating a bill to provide some relief to new moms by extending Medicaid’s postpartum coverage, a freshman member of the State House, Jeanette Ward, invoked a brutally narrow view of the Bible. ‘Cain commented to God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”’ she said. ‘The obvious answer is no. No, I am not my brother’s keeper. But just don’t kill him.’”

At the CPAC conference in February 2022, DeSantis quoted Ephesians 6:11 but substituted “left’s schemes” for “devil’s schemes,” thereby shamelessly identifying the left with the devil.  Here, Ward shamelessly put forth the most unlikely interpretation of Cain’s response to God after he murdered his brother Abel.  Of course, Stubson commented on the fraud:

“This confusing ‌mash-up‌ of Scripture (Ms. Ward got it wrong: The answer is yes, I am my brother’s keeper) is emblematic of a Christian nationalist who weaponizes God’s word to promote the agenda du jour. We should expect candidates who identify as followers of Christ to model some concern for other people.

Rhetoric like Ms. Ward’s can have devastating implications when it results in policy change. Even though the Medicaid bill became law, the hospital in Rawlins no longer delivers babies, meaning Wyomingites about to give birth must now travel 100 miles over one of the nation’s most treacherous stretches of Interstate. Woe to those with a winter due date.”

Stubson describes her personal crisis as a Republican and an evangelical having to live through this new reality:

“I am adrift in this unnamed sea, untethered from both my faith community and my political party as I try to reconcile evangelicals’ repeated endorsements of candidates who thumb their noses at the least of us. Christians are called to serve God, not a political party, to put our faith in a higher power, not in human beings. We’re taught not to bow to false idols. Yet idolatry is increasingly prominent and our foundational principles — humility, kindness and compassion — in short supply.”

For Christian nationalists, as discussed earlier, political goals come before Christian principles and secular prophets eclipse church leaders who would like to stay faithful to the Christian message.  Stubson talks about the crisis faced by pastors who found themselves powerless as they tried to keep their churches focused on Christ:

“I recently attended a conference devoted to spiritual maturity. Of the attendees, a large percentage were pastors. Some had flown in, seeking anonymity for fear of job loss or reprisal. Many had dared to raise hard questions, challenging their congregation to think deeply about immigration, puzzle through the church’s treatment of the L.G.B.T.Q. community, to dive into Scripture and to find answers.

For some, just making the suggestion had put their neck on the line. One pastor was recently fired. Another, who was nearing the end of his career, lamented: Where did I go wrong in my teaching? Am I complicit in this movement? Have I created this monster? I have failed my flock.

I can think of no better illustration of the calamitous force of Christian nationalism than a room full of faith leaders, regret lined deep in their brows, expressing shame and disappointment in those they were called to lead.”