WASHINGTON (AP) – The Christian imagery and rhetoric on display during this month’s Capitol insurrection are sparking a renewed debate about the social effects of fusing the Christian faith with an excluding race of nationalism.
Protesters who violated the Capitol on January 6, leading to federal charges against more than 130 people so far, included several people carrying posters with Christian messages, and the video showed a man in a fur hat and horns leading others in prayer within the Senate Chamber. They also included several current or former members US military or police forces, as well as a West Virginia state legislature.
The rise of what is often called Christian nationalism has long elicited resistance from leaders in various denominations, with the Joint Baptist Committee on Religious Freedom forming the Christian Against Christian Nationalism coalition in 2019. But shortly after the insurrection, other Christian leaders spoke out to denounce what they considered to be a misuse of their faith to justify a violent attack on a government headquarters.
Russell Moore, president of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, said that when he saw a “Jesus saves” sign displayed near a gallows built by rioters, “I was furious to the point that I was not furious in memory. This is not just dangerous and unpatriotic, but also blasphemous, to present an image of the gospel of Jesus Christ that is not the gospel and, instead, is the exact opposite. ”
Dwight McKissic, a southern black Baptist pastor who has publicly criticized the way church leaders deal with racial justice, asked them in a tweet to also “denounce this blatant display of white Christian nationalism” by the rebels.
To contain what liberal and conservative clerics see as misappropriating their faith, however, they must first face the challenge of defining Christian nationalism for a wide audience. Christians against Christian nationalism describes it as an ideology that “requires Christianity to be privileged by the state and implies that to be a good American, one must be a Christian”.
During a virtual panel that the coalition held this week, a prominent leader stressed that love for the country and for God can coexist without making a person a Christian nationalist.
It is “very important to understand that we are not condemning being patriots,” said Rev. Elizabeth Eaton, who leads the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Christians “can still be active participants in the public square” as long as they remain faithful to their faith, she added.
Rev. Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, made a similar observation in an interview, citing the corrosive effects of “a convergence of a nationalist and a Christian identity”.
“I certainly love our country and, as the son of immigrant parents, I am deeply grateful for the hope that this nation represents,” said Kim. “But as a Christian, my greatest allegiance is to Christ.”
Still, some supporters of former President Donald Trump say denunciations of Christian nationalism are a way to attack them politically. Former deputy Allen West, now president of the Texas GOP, said on a panel on Tuesday with several other religious conservatives sponsored by the My Faith Votes group that the term is used against those who “do not conform to a socialist and ideological agenda. progressive. “
Another wrinkle in efforts to steer Christians away from an overtly nationalistic projection of their faith is QAnon, the conspiracy theory whose believers were at the front and center of the January 6 rally in support of Trump’s baseless allegations of widespread electoral fraud as well as the riot that followed.
In the video filmed by a New York reporter during the siege, the fur hat Jacob Chansley – known as the “shaman QAnon” for his alignment with conspiracy theory, as well as his self-described spiritual tendencies – said a prayer thanking God ” for allowing the United States of America to be reborn. ”As Chansley spoke, other protesters were silent on apparent participation.
Robert Jones, CEO of the independent Public Religion Research Institute, said the QAnon focuses on a “very apocalyptic good versus evil” set of false assumptions that connect Trump’s party to piety and Democrats to paganism.
“The fact that we saw QAnon, white supremacy and white Christianity, all together in a violent attack on the Capitol, means that white Christians have a real exam of conscience to do,” said Jones, author of two books on white Christianity in America.
Christian author Jemar Tisby said by email that the elements of Christianity present in the riot signal that “violent nationalists have developed ways of deploying these religious symbols in the service of their evil ends”.
“Christians who want to get rid of Christian nationalism can leave their churches because the ideology is so deeply ingrained that significant changes are not on the horizon,” said Tisby, CEO of The Witness, a black Christian organization.
In the meantime, Moore said he started talking to pastors about cracking down on QAnon’s potential influence within congregations and plans to do more to provide resources for that purpose.
“One of the barriers to talking about these conspiracy theories is that many pastors and leaders correctly recognize that these things are crazy, so they assume that there is no need to talk to them,” he said. “But we live in a crazy time.”
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