Christian Nationalism

[HondurasKeiser]

I’d forgotten about the term White Nationalism. It seems like such a quaint debate. Lately the 5-alarm fire has been about Christian Nationalism. Some really edgey folks at Anabaptist World Review sometimes worry about White Christian Nationalism which is I guess is extra scary.

[Szdfan]

I’d forgotten about the term White Nationalism. It seems like such a quaint debate. Lately the 5-alarm fire has been about Christian Nationalism. Some really edgey folks at Anabaptist World Review sometimes worry about White Christian Nationalism which is I guess is extra scary.

White nationalism and Christian nationalism are just different flavors of the same thing. They both fuse identity and nationhood into a moral hierarchy where belonging depends on purity, one based on race and the other on faith. Both are poisonous.

[barnhart]

I’d forgotten about the term White Nationalism. It seems like such a quaint debate. Lately the 5-alarm fire has been about Christian Nationalism. Some really edgey folks at Anabaptist World Review sometimes worry about White Christian Nationalism which is I guess is extra scary.

HK, is it your conviction that CN doesn't really exist, it's a strawman erected by radicals, or that it's a fringe movement with no real impact on Anabaptists.

[HondurasKeiser]

I’d forgotten about the term White Nationalism. It seems like such a quaint debate. Lately the 5-alarm fire has been about Christian Nationalism. Some really edgey folks at Anabaptist World Review sometimes worry about White Christian Nationalism which is I guess is extra scary.

HK, is it your conviction that CN doesn't really exist, it's a strawman erected by radicals, or that it's a fringe movement with no real impact on Anabaptists.

Oh I think it exists. I think White Nationalism exists. Fascism and authoritarianism exist as well. Just like woke-ism, Marxism and DEI exist. It may take some effort and real intellectual honesty but they're terms that really do apply to ideas and groups of people really are animated by them. I just get so tired of reading people that unthinkingly lob those labels at everything they dislike or fret over, essentially as epithets. I also get tired of people of casually dismissing real instantiations of of those ideas e.g. "Marxism" or "Critical Theory" are just useful lenses. Charlie Kirk's memorial service was not Christian Nationalism. It made me uncomfortable, sure but as a Mennonite, I am deeply averse to both patriotic fervor and emotionalism in worship. My aversion to those things though does not ipso facto mean that they are instantiations of "Christian Nationalism". Allowing one's Christianity to inform their policymaking is not Christian Nationalism but attempting to dominate the public space with Christian symbology is.

[barnhart]

Would you say it is a fringe movement with little real world impact particularly on Anabaptists.

[HondurasKeiser]

Would you say it is a fringe movement with little real world impact particularly on Anabaptists.

I don't know if it's fringe or not. I certainly don't think it has nearly as much as purchase as people here or in the pages of Anabaptist World Review make it seem. I think a lot of what gets labeled as 'Christian Nationalism' is just typical, patriotic, God & Country displays. I don't like it, indeed it makes me very uncomfortable but it's nothing new. I couldn't possibly know if it's impacting the Anabaptist world or not. I would guess not nearly as much as people fret about. I would suppose that inasmuch as something like Christian Nationalism or even mere patriotism is infiltrating our Anabaptist churches, it's happening concomitantly with various and sundry other worldly infiltrations that make their way into our churches as we acculturate and became strange copies of either the mainline or the evangelical or the reformed.

[barnhart]

Would you say it is a fringe movement with little real world impact particularly on Anabaptists.

I don't know if it's fringe or not. I certainly don't think it has nearly as much as purchase as people here or in the pages of Anabaptist World Review make it seem. I think a lot of what gets labeled as 'Christian Nationalism' is just typical, patriotic, God & Country displays. I don't like it, indeed it makes me very uncomfortable but it's nothing new.

I wouldn't say it is new either but I think it ebbs and flows. What are the distinguish factors you see between Christian Nationalism and "God and country displays". I admit I see it more as a difference of intensity than a difference of substance.

[HondurasKeiser]

Well I’d be curious about your definition of Christian Nationalism.

[barnhart]

It's easier to pick apart someone else's definition than to state your own to be sure. I look to the ways nations have always built their authority and legitimacy on their gods and find those roots mixed into the American experiment from the beginning. There were secular influences like Jefferson and Franklin but they were eager to utilize the "Christian God" and the motivational power that provided over a religious public. The nation has always been pitched as the expression of God's will from Winthrop's city on a hill to Reagan's light on a hill.

To be free from this type of authority claim I think there needs to be a literal air gap of authority like the French revolution where the King and agents of the church are killed, thrown out or exiled and new gods like Reason are installed. Without this, the old authority claims of using Jesus to justify rule will continually bubble up. It easier to see in a parallel socio- religious structure like Islam. A national like Turkey or Iran may embrace secularity for a generation but the old God will resurface in times of internal stress. In the case of the US I consider this Christian Nationalism, using Christian themes or values to justify rule and suppression of alternative authority.

[HondurasKeiser]

It's easier to pick apart someone else's definition than to state your own to be sure. I look to the ways nations have always built their authority and legitimacy on their gods and find those roots mixed into the American experiment from the beginning. There were secular influences like Jefferson and Franklin but they were eager to utilize the "Christian God" and the motivational power that provided over a religious public. The nation has always been pitched as the expression of God's will from Winthrop's city on a hill to Reagan's light on a hill.

To be free from this type of authority claim I think there needs to be a literal air gap of authority like the French revolution where the King and agents of the church are killed, thrown out or exiled and new gods like Reason are installed. Without this, the old authority claims of using Jesus to justify rule will continually bubble up. It easier to see in a parallel socio- religious structure like Islam. A national like Turkey or Iran may embrace secularity for a generation but the old God will resurface in times of internal stress. In the case of the US I consider this Christian Nationalism, using Christian themes or values to justify rule and suppression of alternative authority.

A good Mennonite analysis of the situation though I'm not sure that gets us any closer to defining the essence of 'Christian Nationalism'. A conclusion one could draw from that analysis though, might be something like: "Unless the State kills the power of the Church, people will invariably become Christian Nationalists". Nevertheless, having spent some goodly time in France; I think I prefer the American experiment to the French one when it comes to our 'Separation of Church & State' vs. their 'Laïcité'. I think it's telling too that long before we were tempted by the American siren to power, wealth and influence, we as a people preferred to settle in America as opposed to France. That is to say, as problematic as our system may be, a system that at the very least acknowledges the existence of God, bears fruit that is far superior to a system that pretends to an unattainable value-neutrality.