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.
