Christian Nationalism Threatens the Church

Media Clip: What separates Christianity from every other religion is power. Muslims don't have power. Buddhists don't have power. Atheists have negative power; they don't even believe in power. But Christians are meant to walk in power. Acts chapter one, verse eight, Jesus said, 'Go wait in the upper room for when the Holy Ghost comes upon you, you will be endued with power.' The Christian is meant to be endued with power. Power from on high, the power of the Holy Ghost at work within you and upon you. So the Christian faith is one of power.

Andrew Whitehead: Growing up, I was in church a lot. However, I don't remember a single message about racial justice. In a majority White congregation and community I had the privilege of never really having to think about race. Talking about racial inequality was deemed political, while the work of Christians should be evangelizing and getting people saved so they would one day go to heaven. While racial injustice wasn't a moral issue, there were certain things that were moral issues that Christians should absolutely engage in politics to direct the country in the ways of God. I also don't remember hearing about refugees or immigrants. We were committed to going to other countries to evangelize or welcoming young children's choirs from other countries for a special visit to our congregation. But there wasn't much collective interest in welcoming these folks into our community for the long term. The overall message when it came to racism and immigration and the status of refugees was not to worry about those issues, because the essential thing was to save souls. We were, however, supposed to worry about the moral direction of the United States because, of course, we were blessed by God and if we turned our backs on God's directives, we'd be in jeopardy. In other words, there were political issues we needed to worry about, because those issues would determine the fate of our country. We determined our national morality in terms of abortion, divorce and homosexuality. Not racism or the plight of immigrants or the violence driving refugees from their homes. And if the survival of the nation was at stake, we had to enforce our moral vision so the nation could flourish. We had to vote our values, get the right people in positions of power. Having the right views on these issues made us pro-life and aligned with the clear teaching of scripture. As a sociologist and a Christian who opposes Christian nationalism, I now see the cruel incoherency at the heart of this approach. When it comes to transforming systems that perpetuate racial, economic or other inequalities, the response is: don't be political, focus on saving souls. But when it comes to enforcing the Christian nationalist vision of the country, in other words, when it comes to keeping power and control over the American public square, then political action is a matter of saving the country. It is God's work. When it comes to protecting the vulnerable or expanding rights to more Americans, the response is to spiritualize the gospel, to make it apolitical and strictly about the spiritual salvation of individual people. When it comes to enforcing a social order that tends to benefit White Christians, the response is to vote, mobilize and rally to save the nation from sin and downfall. This incoherency is expressed in the three idols of Christian nationalism: power, fear and violence. These idols betray the gospel and threaten large swaths of the American Christian church by blinding it to the cries of the marginalized and the oppressed. These idols of Christian nationalism turn Christians attention from what Jesus commanded of us. Instead of serving others, we instead seek to serve and benefit ourselves. Christian nationalism, I'm convinced, makes American Christians less Christ-like.

Media Clip (Jeffress): The nation that reverences God will be blessed by God. The nation that rejects God will be rejected by God.

Media Clip (Boebert): The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it.

Media Clip (Mohler): And we have the left routinely speaking of me and of others as Christian nationalists, as if we're supposed to be running from that.

Media Clip (Greene): We need to be the party of nationalism. And I'm a Christian, and I say it proudly. We should be Christian nationalists.

Media Clip (Trump): By the way, Christianity will have power without having to form because if I'm there, you're gonna have plenty of power. You don't need anybody else. You're gonna have somebody representing you very, very, very well. Remember that.

Bradley Onishi: Welcome to American Idols, a podcast series produced by Axis Mundi Media. Sound production and design by Scott Okamoto, who also provided the series original music. American Idols was written and created by Dr. Andrew Whitehead and produced by me, Bradley Onishi.

Andrew: Why does Christian nationalism make American Christians less Christ-like? Christian nationalism idolizes self-interest with power, fear and violence. All of these idols are in service of benefiting the in-group, which, historically, as we've discussed, is a very particular subset of Christians. Within Christianity, idols are typically seen as anything that points the faithful toward competing sets of values in different stories. Idols make promises of protection and provision and they require allegiance. Idols tend to co-opt our theological imaginations, and they distort our knowledge of God and knowledge of our neighbor, and this leads us to betray our loyalty to Jesus and the gospel.

Andrew: The central idol of White Christian nationalism is power. Power is the ability to get others to do what you want despite resistance. In particular, I'm focused on self-interested power. Power that primarily serves us, our group. A thirst for self-interested power is fundamental to Christian nationalism, and it has been that way for centuries. Robert Jones, who is the founder and president of Public Religion Research Institute, writes in his new book, 'The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy,' how deeply Christian nationalism, a doctrine of domination, and a thirst for power are intertwined.

Robert Jones: European Christendom did believe this, that the Americas were intended by God to be a promised land for European Christians, and they had the rights to occupy, to kill. And the words of some of the documents straight from, you know, the head of the western church in Rome, in the 15th century, the rights to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery. This is coming out of the highest authority in Western Christianity, right?

Andrew: A similar thirst for power is one reason why Americans who embrace Christian nationalism overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump in 2016, 2020, and even today.

Media Clip (Trump): By the way, Christianity will have power without having to form because if I'm there, you're gonna have plenty of power. You don't need anybody else. You're gonna have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that.

Andrew: As we discussed in the previous episode, this thirst for power is always willing to set aside any values or ideals that might limit it, even democracy. Listen again to Trump in his speech to followers on January 6, 2021.

Media Clip (Trump): Because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.

Andrew: Idolizing self-interested power allows Christians to baptize their pursuit of privilege that primarily benefited them, and require little self sacrifice and ignore the ongoing inequalities experienced by those around them.

Media Clip (Fuecht): You want God to come and overtake the government? Yes! you want Christians to be the only ones that-- Yes, we do! We wouldn't be a disciple of Jesus if we didn't believe that. We want God to be in control of everything. We want believers to be the ones writing the laws. Yes, guilty as charged! I mean, it's funny when I meet Christians where I'm like, I don't really, I'm not really-- I'm like, have you read the Great Commission? Like, this is actually what we want. Guilty.

Andrew: One avenue through which many American Christians who embrace Christian nationalism are idolizing self-interested power is by redefining religious freedom and religious liberty. While historically religious liberty meant the right of any citizen to practice or not practice religion without governmental interference, some political leaders like Dennis Baxley, who is a Florida State Senator, believe the United States should be a Christian nation. And they're redefining religious liberty as the ability to, in his words, restore the Judeo-Christian foundations of the country. Listen to David Closson from the Family Research Council, which is a large and influential conservative Christian lobbying firm.

David Closson: Yeah, that's a great question. You saw that language being used by some officials in the previous administration, some other organizations. 'Freedom of worship,' which is the language you're seeing used by some. It implies you have the right to do what you want within the four walls of your church, your synagogue or your mosque, but then as soon as you walk out the door or drive off the parking lot, you lose your religious liberty. So that's not the case. The constitution provides for the free exercise of religion, which allows people to exercise their faith, to live out their life in accordance with their fundamental beliefs and convictions. And importantly, the Supreme Court has affirmed this, most recently in the Hobby Lobby case, with the Little Sisters of the Poor. So that's a slight nuance with the language, but the Constitution protects freedom of religion and religious exercise, not merely just freedom of worship.

Andrew: Christians with this view don't see religious liberty as protection from interference from the government with freedom of worship. But rather, as Robert Jones writes in his book, 'The End of White Christian America,' they demand they should be able to carry religious objections from their private religious life into their public roles as service providers, business owners and even elected officials. Here's how Amanda Tyler, who is the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee, who started the movement Christians Against Christian Nationalism, described the relationship between Christian nationalism and the redefining of religious freedom.

Amanda Tyler: And over time I have, I have started to say that Christian nationalism is the single biggest threat to religious freedom for all. And part of the reason is more and more some people who are claiming religious freedom as a moniker for a reason to do something, what they're really talking about is Christian nationalism. They're using the language of religious freedom when they really want a privileged place for Christianity in the culture or in the government. And the language of Christian nationalism has really helped me and people that BJC talks to to understand what's being called religious freedom actually works exactly against it. And for all the reasons that you know, because it, you know, makes contingent our full statuses as citizens and members of the society based on religion or religious belief, which is exactly against the foundational principles in the First Amendment.

Andrew: Christian nationalism uses the terms of religious freedom and liberty to defend and control access to political and cultural power. As Amanda explained, Christian nationalism is used to draw lines around who gets to benefit and have access to the rights of being a US citizen. Stephen Wolfe, author of 'The Case for Christian Nationalism,' believes as a self-identified Christian nationalist, US law should regulate the Sabbath to encourage people to attend church.

Stephen Wolfe: "Civil law cannot compel belief in the Gospel, nor that one worships God in heart, but it can create the best outward conditions for one to conduct undisturbed and focused worship of God. Thus, in addition to ensuring justice in our civil relations, civil authority can regulate the Sabbath day, for example, to remove those daily cares and concerns that distract us from Sunday worship."

Andrew: The embrace of self-interested power leads Christians to the next idol of Christian nationalism, fear. Fear is one of the primary tools Christian nationalism uses to motivate action and prop up a fusion between Christianity and national identity in order to maintain a privileged access to power. Generally, fear is used to distinguish between us and them. Those committed to a Christian nation and those who are not. History and social science suggests that stoking a sense of threat among an in-group aimed at out-groups, whether those out-groups are racial, religious or otherwise, is central to defending and maintaining the cultural framework of White Christian nationalism. We are also told to fear our group losing privileged access to power, as if losing that access is persecution.

Media Clip (Fox News): Welcome back. Now, this first on Fox Business, a bombshell new report reveals the Biden administration is using taxpayer money to wage a covert war on conservatives and Christian groups. The Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, obtaining documents showing DHS from Homeland Security is using a program meant to fight terrorists, which includes groups like the Heritage Foundation, MAGA, Fox News, even the Republican National Committee in the same category as Nazis.

Andrew: Fear of persecution then motivates the group to get involved, push back, and fight for their rights. You see, for a group that is accustomed to privilege, equality feels an awful lot like discrimination. Social science also finds that when American Christians idolize fear, we tend to live by the inverted Golden Rule, 'do unto others as you think they'll do unto you.' My friend and political scientist Paul Djupe coined the phrase. Paul joined the Straight White American Jesus podcast back in 2021 and here's how he described his research around tolerance among religious Americans.

Paul Djupe: And so at some point a few years ago, we decided to actually ask people, 'Hey, you know, what do you think if the tables were turned and these groups were in power, would they respect your rights and liberties?' And we asked a couple different groups. We had Republicans, we had Democrats, atheists and others. And, you know, pretty surprised to find out that there were a lot of folks, and especially among evangelical Christians, that thought that Democrats and atheists were going to strip them of their liberties. It's been a long standing survey research tradition to ask about political tolerance, and this goes back to the 1950s, with the communist scare, asking about political tolerance. Would you extend basic rights and liberties to other groups? So that was kind of the big frame that we were starting with, and then we kind of flipped it and asked about this tables are turned thing. So we have data on whether Democrats and atheists would extend rights and liberties to evangelicals, and it turns out that they would. Now, it's not perfect. They're not going to do it in every situation that you could imagine, and that's pretty common among Americans. Americans aren't that tolerant of people, but Democrats and atheists are more tolerant of Evangelicals than evangelicals are of Democrats. I don't know that we're too surprised by this, but you know that we can think, you know what's motivating this? And I think it comes back to this, the same story that we're talking about today, what I termed the inverted golden rule. So the invertible golden rule is: 'do unto others as you think they'll do unto you,' right? So, you know they're gonna, they're gonna take away your liberty, so you better take away theirs first is the idea. And that's not necessarily scriptural.

Andrew: No, that isn't necessarily scriptural. Paul's research underscores how for many Christians, fear of losing cultural or political power, especially if other groups are now in positions of privilege, leads to fear they will be mistreated. As a result, we are more likely to mistreat them now, when we have political and cultural power based on imagined futures where Christians are marginalized or persecuted. Stephen Wolfe, who we just heard, says it this way, 'In the case for Christian nationalism, indeed, one ought to prefer and to love more those who are more similar to him,' Wolfe writes, 'and much would result in the world if we all preferred our own and minded our own business.' This is a clear and explicit argument for White Christians to love those who are like them more than others. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is a pastor, author and community organizer. He sees fear and how the idol of fear in Christian nationalism ends up pitting Christians against anyone and everyone deemed an 'other' as one of the greatest threats to American Christianity.

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove: The biggest threat I've seen to Christian communities is just the way that the narratives of this movement, when they're internalized by people, people who take them seriously and who think, you know, who think the messages are sincere, they end up pitting those people against others in their community, and frankly, you know, often others in their families. And so this becomes a real pastoral issue. How do you shepherd people and walk with them to share life together when you know they've come to believe that people close to them are sort of existential enemies. I think this is the deepest wound that this movement has created, and why there really needs to be a robust narrative that explains to people how their faith connects to a sort of vision for community and for engagement, even with others who are not like them, who might not even share their their faith or their, you know, deepest commitments, but who, nevertheless, you know, are our fellow creatures and people you know who are part of this universe that God has made and kind of gives them a vision for how they can share life together without being just at odds with one another.

Andrew: The desire to maintain control leads to a fear of those who might take it. And fear of losing power leads to violence. And violence is the final idol of Christian nationalism. When we idolize power and fear, violence is a natural response. Violence, or the threat of violence, is used in order to demarcate and defend the boundaries between us and them. We succumb to fear that something will be stolen from us and that will never recover. Violence is in service of defending perceived threats to the group, always revolving around protecting power. Now the tragic history of indigenous peoples and minorities in North America clearly demonstrates that any quest for power based on hierarchical relationships between us and them ultimately founded on fear of them, will undoubtedly resort to violence. And we see the fruits of this idol even today.

Media Clip: Jehu is gonna rise up, and we're gonna rule and reign through President Trump!

Media Clip: Riots and revival actually erupt!

Media Clip: There's a rushing mighty wind on steroids.

Media Clip: I said many years ago that we would even come to a place of civil war.

Andrew: Those at the Capitol on January 6th heard those words and reacted accordingly. Remember, in our last episode, how comfort with political violence, one of the key elements of the riots on January 6th is intimately intertwined with Christian nationalism. Data collected in August 2021, shows that 40% of White ambassadors, those Americans who strongly embrace Christian nationalism, agree with the statement, 'true American patriots may have to resort to physical violence in order to save our country.' Now, when ambassadors believe that their desires for the country are in fact, God's desires for the country, achieving God's vision is of the utmost importance. If it takes violence to achieve this end, then so be it. Greg Locke is a preacher from Nashville who was in DC around January 6th. Listen to how he intertwines God's will and the kingdom with the direction of the United States and what God's followers should be willing to do. And in fact, in his view, are commanded to do.

Greg Locke: Let me tell you something. You ain't seen the insurrection yet. You keep on pushing our buttons, you lowdown, sorry compromisers. You God-hating communist America, you'll find out what an insurrection is, because we ain't playing your garbage. We ain't playing your mess. My Bible says that the church of the living God is an institution that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and the Bible says that we'll take it by force. That's what the Bible says. That's what the Bible says.

Andrew: As we discussed in the last episode, the idol of violence within Christian nationalism created a permission structure for what we saw on January 6th, and it would be foolish to believe it couldn't happen again. The three idols of Christian nationalism create a blind spot regarding the gospel, the work Jesus claimed he came to do. This caused whole communities of Christians to create definitions and descriptions of the gospel, one that solely focuses on the spiritual, that would allow them to ignore and even actively maintain a status quo in society that tends to benefit them. If you grew up in White evangelicalism like me, see if you recognize the following presentation of the gospel, what we called the Romans Road. So stop one: Romans 3:23, says, 'All have sinned and fallen short of the kingdom of God.' So, this means that we are all sinners separated from God, and we need a solution to this predicament. Stop number two: Romans 5:8 tells us, 'But God demonstrates His own love toward us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.' So this is that even though we are completely unworthy, God still loved us and provided a way to save us from our sin and separation from Him. Stop number three is: Romans 6:23, and it says, 'Death for the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ, Jesus, our Lord.' So here we would talk about how we are all condemned by God and deserve death, the just wages of our sin. But thankfully, God provided a free gift of salvation through Jesus, his son, who died in our place, so he paid the wages of our sin. Now stop number four: Romans 8:1 proclaims, 'Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ, which is good news.' So if you are, quote, unquote, in Christ, you don't have to worry about eternal punishment or condemnation. You don't have to feel guilt or shame. Stop number five is the last stop on the Romans Road, and it's Romans 10:9 and it says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. So this is where on the Romans Road, every person has a decision to make. Do you believe Jesus is Lord? Do you believe he was the Son of God who died for your sin and rose from the dead? If you put your trust in Jesus, then you are saved and you're no longer in bondage to sin. Now you may hear that definition of the gospel and say, 'Yes, that's it. There's nothing more to add.' And for many years, I would have said the exact same thing, but I've come to believe it actually only reflects one aspect of the gospel. This version of the Christian gospel only represents a set of theological claims that we either believe or do not believe, and it only focuses on our individual relationship with God. It only focuses on whether we believe the right things. What this definition of the gospel causes us to miss are broader themes throughout the story of God's work in the world, and one that I think Jesus was actually focused on from the very beginning of his ministry. Throughout the Bible, these two aspects of the Gospel, the theological beliefs and the practices that flow from these theological beliefs, are inextricable, and we can see this most clearly in Jesus's first message in Luke chapter 4. So Jesus stands up in the synagogue and reads a passage from Isaiah, saying, 'The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.' So it's significant here, Jesus is not only pointing to our individual relationship or salvation, but he's talking about liberating humanity and how he is concerned with the suffering of the marginalized and those being crushed by the social structures that oppress them. This aspect of the gospel is called the practical aspect of the gospel. So, growing up, I overly spiritualized Jesus' words in that passage. For many White evangelicals, we would have said that Jesus is talking about the spiritually poor or the spiritual prisoners or the spiritually blind or the spiritually oppressed. But if we're to read it directly, Jesus must be talking about those actually in poverty, freedom for actual prisoners, freedom for those who are literally oppressed. When we focus only on a spiritual definition of the gospel, we miss this practical aspect, and it makes sense as to why for so long, White evangelicalism was mostly focused on person-to-person evangelism and getting people saved, showing them the Romans Road and then calling it a day.

Andrew: We had little to say about the political and social realities of groups around us who were trying to get us to see their struggles. This is most likely because our political and social realities were marked by privilege, a passage focused on freeing the oppressed and those in poverty wouldn't make sense to those who really have never been oppressed or who have never really experienced poverty. Later in my journey, I began to ask myself a question that brings to light how an overly spiritualized, individualistic Christian Gospel falls short of what Jesus claimed to do. So ask yourself if I preach this gospel that only focuses on an individual spiritual condition. Would it be good news to those enslaved in 1845 or those being forcibly removed from the lands of their ancestors? Would they receive this promise of future salvation as good news if it didn't change the reality? Around them and the current suffering they were experiencing. Remember in episode one, when Dr. Jemar Tisby shared how in 1667 the Virginia Assembly, composed of all White Christian men, enacted a law that set a Christian baptism, understood as an outward assenting to faith in the person and work of Jesus would not emancipate the person being baptized. If they were a slave and of indigenous, mixed or African descent. Their soul would be saved and belong to God, but their body and future belong to their enslaver. The words of James Cone in his book, 'The Cross and the Lynching Tree,' states this reality. He writes, 'And yet the Christian gospel is more than a transcendent reality, more than going to heaven when I die to shout salvation as I fly. It is also an imminent reality, a powerful, liberating presence among the poor right now in their midst, building them up when they are torn down, and propping them up on every leaning side. The gospel is found wherever poor people struggle for justice, fighting for their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' So when we sever the spiritual and practical aspects of the Christian gospel, both of which are important, we will miss how Jesus was focused on a fundamental realignment of power across our human relationships, in addition to our own personal spiritual condition. So when Jesus was proclaiming God's kingdom on earth, it was going to have an effect on the social realities of humanity and our relationships. If White American Christians only view the gospel as something of a personal possession with no implications for how we fight the evil that harms our neighbors, then we're missing the true nature and scope of the gospel and salvation. We're also doing active harm by spiritualizing the gospel when it benefits us and politicizing it when we want to gain power and have public control.

Andrew: It's important to point out how the use of power is a natural part of being involved in civic life as a United States citizen. In order to oppose Christian nationalism, it isn't as though Christians should not be involved at all. So you may hear some Christians say something like, 'there's no King but Jesus, so I stay out of politics.' While this sounds spiritual and seems to oppose the use of self interested power to benefit privileged Christians, it actually misses the mark. Jesus's message and the story of God's Kingdom is about siding with the marginalized and lifting up those who are oppressed. As author Jemar Tisby puts it, 'Justice takes sides.' So this means that the antidote is not to refuse power or using the political process altogether, but to give up a quest for self-interested power meant to only benefit us, an in-group. One example of power rightly used is the civil rights movement. One end result of this movement was the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, which certainly used power to get people to do something they might otherwise not have wanted to do, but this use of power was to the benefit of all. It allowed all Black Americans and other minorities full access to American democracy for the first time in our nation's history. It wasn't as though this law said only Black Americans can vote, taking away that right from White Americans. Rather, it opened up opportunities to participate in democracy to everyone, rather than to just a few.

Media Clip (Martin Luther King, Jr.): And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites, polar opposites, so that love is identified with a resignation of power and power with a denial of love. Now we got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best-- Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. And justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.

Andrew: As Miguel de la Torre writes in, 'Reading the Bible From the Margins,' what is required for the salvation of the center and for the creation of a just society is the radical commitment to be in solidarity with those who exist on the margins of society and to accompany them in their daily struggle. So, it is self-interested power that Christian nationalism idolizes, and it is self-interested, power that Christians should be willing to reject. But it's easy to ignore the practical aspects of the gospel that were a key part of Jesus's ministry, because in many ways, we've always been free. We already enjoy so much in the here and now. What use to White American Christians is a gospel that centers the marginalized and the oppressed and overturns the systems that harm them when we have, for so long, benefited from the existence of those very systems. As James Cone tells us, the cross can heal and hurt, it can be empowering and liberating, but also enslaving and oppressive. There is no one way in which the cross can be interpreted. The idols of Christian nationalism cause us to interpret the cross in a way that harms and oppresses. Christians can and should move toward expressions of the faith that interpret the cross in a way that seeks to heal and empower those on the margins being crushed by systems of oppression. This is why I wrote 'American Idolatry,' and this is my hope for the future of American Christianity. The idols of Christian nationalism have produced unimaginable pain and suffering for so many groups. For White American Christians as a whole, embracing Christian nationalism has produced affluence, privilege and comfort, but these were built on the backs of others. It shouldn't surprise us that many are leaving the Christian church and never looking back. I love how author Dante Stewart puts it. He writes in his book, 'Shouting in the Fire,' 'I have learned that many of us have not given up on the faith, just the way our faith has been used to oppress others. We have not given up on the Bible, just the way it has been used to marginalize others. We have not given up on Jesus. We just know he ain't a blue-eyed Republican. In reality, those leaving churches have given up on the White supremacist brain of Christianity that cares more about power than Jesus.' And as I write in my book, to oppose White Christian nationalism is not to give up on Christianity. Christianity can be marked by sacrifice, hope, grace, service, faith, and, of course, love. Christians can disentangle our faith from Christian nationalism, and thus move more closely to embody the life and teachings of Jesus, the gospel, in our congregations and communities. We can tell better stories. We can provide better narratives than those we've been handed. We can take part in the good work of the gospel that Jesus inaugurated, rescuing us all from the oppression of sin in our personal worlds and in the systems and structures of society. Now, where do we go from here? We've seen that Christian nationalism presents a clear threat to a pluralistic democratic society here in the United States. And we've just discussed how Christian nationalism can blind American Christians to the ways our society crushes our neighbors, betraying Jesus's proclamation of God's coming Kingdom. In our next episode, we'll explore what is coming next concerning Christian nationalism and how we can respond. Whether you are religious, secular, or anything else, there is a place for joining in the response to help build a society where everyone can participate. A place where those historically marginalized can finally enjoy the full measure of blessings this country has bestowed on some of its citizens. A country where there is truly freedom and justice for all.

Bradley Onishi: Thanks for listening to American Idols from Axis Mundi Media. American Idols was created and written by Dr. Andrew Whitehead. It was produced by me, Brad Onishi. Our sound engineer is Scott Okamoto, who also provided original music. If you haven't already, hit subscribe in order to follow along with this series and all the other great content we're producing at Axis Mundi. We tell the stories at the center of our world so that we can all envision a better one. Until next time, keep your eyes open and feet on the ground.