Starting the day Trump mocked the disabled reporter in 2016, my eyes started opening to the dangers of Christian Nationalism, but I didn’t start calling it by-name until recently. For other Christians who had a similar awakening to mine, there may have been a different event, like the photo-op with Trump in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church. The best definition of Christian Nationalism I know of is from an American non-profit group called Christians Against Christian Nationalism. “Christian Nationalism seems to merge Christian and American identities distorting both the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy. Christian Nationalism demands that Christianity is privileged by the state and implies that in order to be a “good American,” one must be Christian. This often intertwined with white supremacy and racial subjugation.”
In 2016 on that life-altering day, my eyes started painfully opened to historical and present-day truths on a near daily-basis from that moment on. Much can happen in seven years time from 2016-2023. This transformation hasn’t been easy for me. In fact, it’s been so difficult that there are times I’ve had to fight to hold on to a basic belief in God due to the way many white Christians unconditionally have supported Trump and treated those unlike themselves with malice as “less than.” For those who know my faith background and a lifetime in the Church, it would take a hard shaking to unravel it. The combination of Christian Nationalism and having my own children identity as LGBTQ+, I needed a complete deconstruction and reconstruction of my faith. My children aren’t the ones who needed to change; I knew I had to be the one to change and love my children for the way they are, ie. love my neighbor as myself.
The only way I could hold on to faith and integrate my lived realities with Christ and His Church was to shift left, both theologically and politically. Since I already had a serious problem with racism and disability discrimination, the shift wasn’t as difficult, but it was still very difficult.
As I quoted Catholic theologian Dr. Clarence White previously, “The truth is found in the voices of the vulnerable.” I will add that it is certainly not found in the voices of the elite who have little to no contact with vulnerable people. I saw this picture from The Naked Pastor, David Hayward.
The picture is a stark difference between love and hate. Christian Nationalism discards the teachings of Jesus Himself and weaponizes from an Epistle-centric view based on judgement instead of Gospel-centric view based on love. Real Christianity, which is Gospel-centric, centers around the teachings of Jesus Christ to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
I believe that if Christ Himself came to America today, some Christians would attempt to re-execute him while other Christians and non-religious would see the humanity and love in Jesus Christ.
In the most recent moments, former Southern Baptist President Russell Moore recently mentioned that we are in trouble when we call the teachings of Jesus “liberal talking points and weak.” When public priests like Father James Altman state that we need to “tie a millstone around Jorge Bergoglio’s (Pope Francis) neck and throw him into the Mediterranean Sea,” we know we aren’t dealing with the love of Christ anymore. We are dealing with Christian Nationalism, not Christianity.
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