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White Christian Nationalism’s Threat Has Not Gone Away
New report details the ways white Christian nationalism precipitated the Insurrection, and warns of the ideology’s present danger
A riot. An attempted coup. God’s will. An example of “legitimate political discourse.”
As efforts to investigate or rewrite the history of the January 6th Insurrection carry on within Congress, a group of thinkers who focus upon the place of faith in the civil sphere offer other observations. Namely, the Insurrection was a violent, obvious example of the threat of white Christian nationalism, and one worth interrogating to better understand how this worldview might further impact our country.
A new report, “Christian Nationalism and the January 6, 2021 Insurrection,” offers a depiction of how the religiously-coded political ideology of white Christian nationalism was primed for violence last year. Its mythology is pervasive across many U.S. churches, with an overarching will to political power braided into loose Biblical claims. Political wins for Christian conservatives are treated as God’s will. An insular narrative, assisted by certain news networks and websites, amplifies a sense of political manifest destiny for white Christian Americans.
Over recent years, that perspective also became synonymous for many with Donald Trump’s rise.
The report details the dizzying overlay of Christian nationalist rhetoric and symbolism that fed into the Capitol riot and was understood by many rioters as its justification. As one of the report’s authors, Andrew L. Seidel, a constitutional attorney at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, notes, Christian nationalism created a permission structure that gave the Insurrectionists “the moral and mental license” to try to overturn a free election and attack our government. “The attackers told us loudly and repeatedly what they believed and why it justified the attack.” If we ignore this worldview, “we are inviting future attacks,” Seidel maintains.
At a time when many of the insurrectionists are still held up as “heroes” and “the good guys” by influential faith leaders, Seidel’s warning ought to be heeded.
White Christian nationalism is typically defined as a cultural framework with “a collection of myths, traditions…
