Democrats have an opportunity to serve the majority of the American people during the six investigative hearings into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. But they will fail unless they name and shame the increasingly violent ideology of former President Donald Trump’s acolytes: white Christian nationalism.
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin has promised that the House select committee’s exhaustive findings from over 1,000 witnesses will “blow the roof off the House” by revealing “concerted planning and premeditated activity” by Trump, the White House, and MAGA allies (still) trying to overthrow a free and fair election.
However, in order to truly connect the dots for the American public, Democrats, and their two Republican fellow committee members, Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, have to put a label on the underlying white supremacist narrative that has now gone mainstream in the GOP.
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Christian nationalism believes in the enduring and dangerous “deep story” that America is a special nation divinely favored by God and entrusted to white Christians as its sovereign protectors, in order to implement and spread the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. These “Christian” values and morals are allegedly under active threat and assault by “invaders”—who presently include feminists, LGBTQ+, Jews, people of color, Muslims, immigrants, and essentially anyone who opposes their proposed theocratic state.
In this worldview, America can only be made “great” again if we return to its previous natural order, in which white Christian patriarchy reigned supreme. Violence, as blessed and rationalized by a militarized reading of the Gospel and a belief in a warrior Jesus, is justified to “take back” the country by any means necessary.
In 2013 retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin—a right-wing white Christian nationalist—said he believed Jesus will return armed with an AR-15, the weapon of mass destruction responsible for numerous school shootings and murdered children. In 2022, Daniel Defense, the company which manufactured the AR-15 rifle the Uvalde shooter used, posted a since-deleted photo showing a child holding a rifle with the Bible verse: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
For white Christian nationalism, Jesus doesn’t turn the other cheek and forgive those who trespass him. Instead, he stands his ground like John Wayne, shoots first like Kyle Rittenhouse, refuses to apologize for his actions like Donald Trump, and charges the U.S. Capitol to take back this country from alleged members of the “Deep State.”
According to a terrifying report from the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty released in February 2022 (which has sadly not received enough media coverage), Christian nationalism was a “driving” and “unifying force” for the violent insurrectionists on Jan. 6.
Just last week, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene defended Christian nationalism in a video, claiming that it’s “nothing to be afraid of.” But in her telling Democrats are the real “domestic terrorists” while Christians like herself simply “love their country and want to take care of it.” Furthermore, she said Christian nationalism would cure the nation of its crime, mass shootings, and sexual immorality.
This is the same congresswoman who wants to “take care” of the country by calling on Trump—a notorious adulterer who bragged about grabbing women by their vaginas—to implement martial law. She takes on sexual immorality and “pedo-grifters” by hiring disgraced right-wing extremist Milo Yiannopoulos as her intern and promoting the dangerous QAnon conspiracy theory. Yiannopoulos now says he’s a born-again “ex-gay” Christian—but back when he was a right-wing media superstar he advocated for consensual sexual relationships between 13-year-old boys and adults. (All is forgiven in the church of MTG, so long as you’re a MAGA Republican.)
Rep. Greene has shown her “love” for America by mocking the survivor of a school shooting and attending a white nationalist conference hosted by notorious racist and antisemite Nick Fuentes, who urged his followers to cheer for Putin as Russia was brutally and illegally invading Ukraine. She loves sharing the talking points of the Proud Boys, a violent far-right group whose ex-leader was among five members recently indicted for seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 attack. She echoed their sentiment that Jan. 6 would be “our 1776.”
According to Katherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, “the strength of the movement is in its dense organizational infrastructure: a closely interconnected network of right-wing policy groups, legal advocacy organizations, legislative initiatives, sophisticated data operations, networking groups, leadership training initiatives, and media and messaging platforms, all working together for common political aims.”
This movement includes Doug Mastriano, the GOP’s nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, who has called the separation of church and state a “myth” and actively promotes the “Big Lie”. As a state senator he tried to overturn Pennsylvania’s vote for Biden in 2020 by asking for a fake audit, and now he wants all Pennsylvania voters to re-register to vote. Mastriano not only attended the Jan. 6 rally, he chartered buses for others to attend. He has threatened to decertify the state’s voting machines “with the stroke of a pen.” Though he’s rejected the label of Christian nationalist in the past, he sure acts as its model soldier. One can only imagine the damage he’ll do to Pennsylvania and, by extension, the nation if he’s elected to office.
It’s very important to note that many American Christians have rejected Christian nationalism and issued a statement against it as being utterly antithetical to true Christian values. Historian Dr. Jemar Tisby says “to follow Christ is to reject the Christian nationalist ideology. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her allies can follow Jesus’s teachings or the teachings of Christian nationalism, but they cannot do both.”
Unfortunately, Greene and Mastriano are part of a growing movement that actively supports Trump’s hateful and dark vision of America. For example, nearly 83 percent of white Evangelical voters went for Trump in 2020, up from 81 percent in 2016. According to a survey conducted last year by the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, 62 percent of white Evangelical Protestants believe there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election and 63 percent believe that President Biden’s win was “not legitimate.” A quarter of them believe in the QAnon conspiracy and, according to a Southern Poverty Law Center poll, nearly two-thirds of Republicans believe in some aspect of the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. Last year, 41 percent completely or somewhat agreed with the statement “if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves even if it requires taking violent actions.” We all witnessed that bloody sentiment in action on Jan. 6.
When Muslim extremists committed acts of terrorism, Republicans were adamant that we name the threat as “Islamic terrorism” and wage a cruel, relentless War on Terror that villainized Islam and Muslim communities at home and abroad as America’s enemies. However, when the violent extremists come from within their own tribe, the Republican National Committee refers to them as “ordinary citizens” who were simply engaging in a “legitimate political discourse.”
If Democrats truly want to save our democracy and guard us against the ongoing coup, then they have to name the active, violent threat that also happens to be walking within our Congressional halls.
Say it, Democrats: White Christian nationalism is a threat to our democracy, and Americans’ personal safety.
