Hello my friends!

Just as a reminder, I am on family leave, but I have asked several people I greatly admire to share their insight and heart on topics we've been discussing together while I am away.

Today, I'm honored to share thoughts from Andrew Whitehead. He is an associate professor sociology at Indiana University-Indianapolis and He’s the author of the new book American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church.

I first discovered Andrew through his other book he also wrote, along with Sam Perry called, Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, which won several awards. I've had the pleasure of following his work ever since. He is not only a talented scholar, but a wonderful person.

I also asked him if he would share some resources with us that may be helpful. This is what he said:

-I’ve found engaging with history to be so helpful in understanding “how we got here” and what it will mean for us to face the future. Speaking particularly about American Christianity and the particular expression that animates much of Christian nationalism today, Kevin Kruse’s book One Nation Under God, Jemar Tisby’s The Color of Compromise, Robert Jones’ White Too Long, Frances Fitzgerald’s The Evangelicals and Kristin Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne are each really strong places to start.

-Listening and learning from the faith experiences and perspectives of those who differ from me on any number of qualities is so helpful as being a white, able-bodied, straight, white man in America leads to a very particular and privileged existence. A few of these books are Sarah Bessey’s Out of Sorts, Kat Armas’ Abuelita Faith, James Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree, Dante Stewart’s Shoutin’ in the Fire, Lisa Sharon Harper’s The Very Good Gospel, and Dominque DuBois Gilliard’s Subversive Witness.

-There is also great work being done both within and outside academia on Christian nationalism and Christian political engagement. Some notable works are Phil Gorski and Sam Perry’s The Flag and the Cross, Katherine Stewart’s The Power Worshippers, Andrew Seidel’s The Founding Myth, Katelyn Shiess’ The Liturgy of Politics, and Jonathan Hartgrove Wilson’s Revolution of Values, and Greg Boyd’s The Myth of a Christian Nation.

Before continuing on, I wanted to remind you of the announcement I made last week:

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Without further ado, here is our content for today.

Exploring "American Idolatry" with Andrew Whitehead

I grew up in northern Indiana, a small community where farming and manufacturing were the economic backbone of the region. The population of my little village has hovered between one and two thousand people for the last 80 years. It was a one stoplight town—unless you counted the blinking light a block away from the town square.

There was no shortage of churches serving the area: over a dozen in a five-mile radius. You would also regularly see American flags draped off front porches or attached to the streetlights dotting downtown.

I learned so much growing up in this town. It was formative to my faith, my understanding of community and neighborliness. People cared about and for each other. On Sunday morning, or Wednesday and Sunday nights, those worshipping beside you were likely to be your teacher, florist, electrician, or insurance agent.

Being a good American meant being a good Christian. And being a good Christian meant accept the correct beliefs, care for those around you, stand up for what is right, and advocate for our Christian convictions in the public square. We were instructed to “vote our values” to ensure the United States maintained God’s blessing. We were taught we had to get the “right” people in power to keep the dangers threatening America—feminism, divorce, homosexuality, Secularism, or non-Christian faiths—at bay.

My guess is these experiences sound familiar to many of you.

If it does, we grew up amid what sociologists call strong plausibility structures. Plausibility structures are the social arrangements that provide support for meaning and belief systems. A strong plausibility structure is when a person is embedded in a context where everyone they are connected to sees the world in a very similar way.

When everyone already agrees, the worldview is invisible—and that is when it is most powerful.

But looking back, I can identify some moments of my journey that began to pierce through the veil. A trusted youth pastor complicating my black-and-white view of “us” versus “them,” a college professor who showed how the founding fathers were not evangelical Protestants, and hearing the stories of those who did not grow up white, male, or Christian in this country, like I did.

These moments and people began to rewire my plausibility structures—the social arrangements providing support for my belief and meaning systems were changing. I began to see how the values of neighborliness and community were in some ways constricted, limited to people like “us.”

What I later came to recognize, study, and define as Christian nationalism, was (and for many people still is) taken for granted. I didn’t question the tenets of Christian nationalism, and more importantly, how they differed from various expressions of the Christian faith.

Much of what I had been taught of how to be Christian in America was predicated on the intertwining of a particular expression of Christianity with American identity, and the accompanying desire to see this fusion elevated throughout our society to “save” our country.

This is the essence of Christian nationalism—a cultural framework asserting that civic life in the United States should be organized according to a particular form of conservative Christianity. In addition to the standard Christian religious and theological beliefs, Christian nationalism brings with it a host of cultural assumptions about who really matters and who should be in charge of life in the United States—primarily white, natural born Christian citizens.

After years of examining Christian nationalism as a social scientist, and continuing my journey as a Christian, I’ve found that the practical fruit of Christian nationalism is not love. Rather, the practical fruit of Christian nationalism is power, control, domination, fear, and violence.

Christian nationalism is not interested in a government for the people by the people, but rather for a particular people, by a particular people. Christian nationalism weakens democracy and Christianity by demanding we seek earthly, self-interested power, rather than seeking to support and serve the marginalized.

There are three idols central to Christian nationalism that make promises of protection and provision to American Christians and demand their allegiance: Power, Fear, and Violence. I believe these idols co-opt our theological imaginations and distort our knowledge of God and how we see our neighbor.

When we pledge our allegiance to Christian nationalism, we end up betraying our loyalty to Jesus and the gospel. Let’s take a quick look at each idol.

First, is power. Power is the ability to get others to do what you want, despite their resistance.

Wielding power to serve one’s own group is tempting. Especially when it is facing the political realities of living in a pluralistic, democratic society where collaboration and compromise are vital.

But when it comes down to democracy or power, white Christian nationalism chooses power every time. And this is where Christians must exercise wisdom—it isn’t as though we shouldn’t participate in the political process which involves the use of power.

But we should do so with the goal of reaching a common good where all can flourish. It should not be about wielding power to only protect and preserve our group’s access to privilege.

Fear and a sense of threat, the second idol of Christian nationalism, focuses on a perceived loss of privileged access to power. It seeks to protect the people like us against “them.” It urges Christians to fear their neighbors—those with different skin colors, nationalities, or religious beliefs —rather than loving them.

Violence is a third idol of Christian nationalism. It is intimately intertwined with worshipping power and demonizing others through fear. When the fires of fear and threat are constantly stoked because “they” are out to steal “our” rightful power, violence is a natural result.

But any embrace of violence against our neighbors signals a distrust of the work of God in the world and seeing the image of God in all people. It builds up dividing walls of hostility, rather than breaking them down.

Christian nationalism blinds us to the cries of those speaking out against social inequality. It obscures the structural and systemic causes of racial inequality. And because it claims that United States has a special relationship with the Christian God—any criticism of America is seen as attack on God and the Christian faith.

Ironically—the Bible itself is filled with criticism of God’s people when they fail to live up to God’s commands and especially when they mistreat their neighbors.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. showed us, “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” Injustice experienced by one community is injustice experienced by all.

When Jesus came, he preached a Kingdom of God and gospel that was good news to the poor, oppressed, and imprisoned (Luke 4:16-21).

He was not only talking about our personal salvation but about abundant life for everyone.

Once we see the gospel as good news for the present, good news for the marginalized, good news for the prisoner, good news for the poor, good news for the blind, and good news for the oppressed, we can begin to take the evidence that social science hands us about Christian nationalism and recognize this ideology limits—and in many cases outright opposes—the work Jesus claimed he came to do and commanded us to do likewise (Matt. 22:37–40) – love the Lord your God, love your neighbor as yourself.

I have long wrestled with the implications of Christian nationalism for Christianity, both professionally and in my own faith journey. There are times where I felt like there is little we can do to stem the tide.

And yet, I hope.

I believe the seeds of such hope were planted in me long ago. Hope for love and for community. These were values that existed in my small town—but they were only meant for “us.” But that is the lie told by Christian nationalism.

I think Jesus’ life and message is so much more expansive, inclusive, and beautiful.

And so I hope.

I hope the American church can move toward expressions of Christianity that allow it to regain its prophetic voice.

I hope the American church is no longer merely a servant of this distorted vision for our nation and the world.

I hope we can all continue to confront Christian nationalism in our midst, journeying together toward a future where everyone is allowed to flourish.

Now I'd like to hear from you.

Was this helpful for you? If so, he writes more at https://andrewwhitehead.substack.com and you can find him on social media.