BOOK RECOMMENDATION: Alberta, Tim (2023). The kingdom, the power, and the glory: American evangelicals in an age of extremism

Friends,

I highly recommend this book. It was authored by former Politico Magazine chief political correspondent Tim Alberta who now writes for The Atlantic. He grew up in a white protestant church where his father served as a preacher for many years. It documents in great detail how the white Evangelical church in our country has gotten politicized to the point of deeply divided and wounding internal politics with one side opposing Trumpism and the other, often quiet, timid, or numb, in the crosshairs of partisan politics playing out in the church. Alberta maintains that this mixing of partisan, defensive politics with religion—acting as if the church were "under siege," a claim he handily dismisses, or as if the Kingdom of God needed these self-proclaimed warriors' help—cheapens the Gospel.

It's hard to encapsulate all the drama, fractiousness and hurt that Alberta vividly captures in his visits to around 30 churches throughout the U.S. over three years, from 2020 to 2023. His text is punctuated throughout with soulful reflection on the meaning, purpose, and role of the church in today's world anchored in Christ's teachings that speak, even now, to the redemptive possibilities of a church rooted in compassion and justice.

One can get to the heart of Alberta's treatise from his conversation with former megachurch Pastor Brian Zahnd, pastor of the Word of Life Church who has a Youtube channel to which one can subscribe. In St. Joseph, Missouri, his church experienced great tumult during the last Trump presidency as white evangelical Christians took sides on the Trump agenda. At the end of Chapter 15, Alberta and Zahnd are in conversation about whether the church is optimally positioned to take a stand.  Here is his response.

"Taking a stand," Zhand scoffed. "There is this soft assumption of action we're called to take. The task of the church is simply to be the Church. All of this high-blown rhetoric about changing the world—we don't need to change the world. We're not called to change the world. We are called to be the world already changed by Christ; that's how we're salt; that's how we're light. (p.293)

This is just one of the many gems that grace the pages of Alberta's book, which he masterfully narrates in its audiobook version. Treat yourself to the wisdom and healing power of this timely and exceptional text that is among the best books I've read this year.

-Angela Valenzuela 

References

Alberta, T. (2023). The kingdom, the power, and the glory: American evangelicals in an age of extremism. Harper.

Woe to us if the case of a Catholic-run charter school reaches the Supreme Court by Katherine Stewart | MSNBC

Woe to us indeed should this Catholic-run charter school out of Oklahoma make it to the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS). It's sickening to think that a SCOTUS decision in this case could very well institute, in effect, "Catholic Sharia Law" by allowing our public tax dollars to flow into Catholic-run charters and other religious schools where, of course, religious doctrine would get taught. 

As covered by Stewart herein, of great importance is a loss of rights for employees, including teachers and administrators, as well as students in such schools would experience—including First Amendment rights and the right of due process. This is because religious schools "are exempt from laws that protect students and employees alike from broad categories of discrimination." The "ministerial exception" option available to religious institutions is an open door to discrimination, leaving victims defenseless.

This does not at all represent societal progress, but is rather a step backwards should the highest court rule on this. Thanks to Dr. Tony Baez for sharing. We are duly warned. 

-Angela Valenzuela

Woe to us if the case of a Catholic-run charter school reaches the Supreme Court

Though transparently unconstitutional, an Oklahoma school board's decision may still be blessed by the radical conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Pastoral Center Offices for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City last year.Google Maps

June 7, 2023, 6:01 PM CDT

By Katherine Stewart, author of "The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism"

Since the 19th century, when the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations asked for a share of tax money to fund their own sectarian religious schools, it has been a matter of settled constitutional law that commingling public education and sectarian religion is impermissible. That is why what happened Monday in Oklahoma is so disturbing and significant. Over the objections of the state’s attorney general, Oklahoma’s Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted to approve an application from the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma for a publicly funded charter school.

The board put the archdiocese on the path to provide a Christian education paid for by the state. Though transparently unconstitutional, this arrangement may still be blessed by the radical conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, which has issued a series a rulings in recent years that use a specious idea of religious freedom to promote the establishment of religion.

For example, after the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade, Notre Dame Law School hosted a conference in Rome at which Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito framed “religious liberty” as deference to those with certain religious viewpoints. The principle may sound equitable, but in practice it is a lightly disguised means of privileging conservative Christians.

Consider, too, that in December, former Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor said recent decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court had cleared the way for public funding for schools that promote religious doctrines and are under sectarian control.  

It’s not just the U.S. Constitution that should have stopped the board from approving the application to create St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Charter School. Oklahoma law specifically prohibits charter schools from being sectarian. “The approval of any publicly funded religious school is contrary to Oklahoma law and not in the best interest of taxpayers,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said after the board voted. “It’s extremely disappointing that board members violated their oath in order to fund religious schools with our tax dollars. In doing so, these members have exposed themselves and the state to potential legal action that could be costly.”

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in a statement: “It’s hard to think of a clearer violation of the religious freedom of Oklahoma taxpayers and public-school families than the state establishing the nation’s first religious public charter school. This is a sea change for American democracy.”

In testimony to the state's virtual charter school board in February, Ken Upton, an attorney for Americans United, cited “teaching religion, sponsoring prayer, discriminating based on religion, or otherwise promoting religion or coercing students to take part in religious activities” in saying, “St. Isidore makes clear in its application that it intends to do all these things.”

The archdiocese has on its side some powerful allies from the same conservative legal movement that helped secure a majority on the Supreme Court, including the Notre Dame Religious Liberty Clinic at Notre Dame Law School. Formed in 2020, the clinic has deep ties to the Federalist Society and the ultraconservative members of the Supreme Court. The clinic’s director, Stephanie Barclay, clerked for Justice Neil Gorsuch and litigated cases for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. An associate dean, Nicole Stelle Garnett, clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and has written approvingly of the Supreme Court’s decision last year in Carson v. Makin, which expanded taxpayer funding for religious schools in Maine, and for which the clinic submitted an amicus brief.

Given the record of the Supreme Court’s right-wing majority in cases involving so-called religious freedom, supporters of St. Isidore have good reason to believe that majority will say St. Isidore can use public money to support its sectarian program — clearing the way for a future in which large amounts of money flow from local, state and federal treasuries into religious networks with clear political agendas and significant influence over public education.

As bad as such a Supreme Court ruling would be, perhaps even worse would be a decision that says such schools could discriminate against anybody or any group that offends their religious sensibilities. But this is precisely what the groups behind the Oklahoma religious charter school are teeing up in Colorado. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is representing Faith Bible Chapel International in a case arguing for a “ministerial exception” to anti-discrimination laws at religious schools. 

In that case, Greg Tucker, a white man who served for 14 years as a teacher and the director of student life at the private religious school, adopted a Black daughter, after which some students started to refer to his family using racial slurs. After he tried to establish a symposium for students to address racism, he was fired. Tucker maintains that the firing was blatantly retaliatory and discriminatory.

The school is claiming a “ministerial exception” to anti-discrimination law. Such exceptions are intended to allow religious employers to avoid liability when they fire “ministers” and clergy. Although Tucker was not a “minister,” but rather a teacher, with no responsibility for theological instruction or significant religious functions as part of his job, the school is trying to use “ministerial exception” as a trump card against his claim that it practiced racial discrimination. A divided 2-1 panel at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the church, which has appealed to the Supreme Court. 

Given the tolerance for discrimination in the name of religion that the Supreme Court has demonstrated in cases such as Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., which let certain companies deny birth control coverage to their employees, and in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, which says fired clergy cannot sue for discrimination, and given the court's eagerness to support the public funding of religious schools it has demonstrated in Carson v. Makin, it is reasonable to fear two things: that this court will decide not only that tax dollars can be used to fund religious schools but also that religious schools are exempt from laws that protect students and employees alike from broad categories of discrimination.

If the Faith Bible Chapel International and St. Isidore cases are heard before this Supreme Court, it seems likely that public education in the U.S. is about to change for the worse in the same way the Dobbs ruling changed women’s health care for the worse.

Make no mistake: America’s Christian right is taking direct aim at secular public education, but let’s not forget that it is also after the money. The U.S. spends over $700 billion on public K-12 schools every year. If conservative Christian leaders can lay claim to part of that sum, it could help sustain conservative churches, whose attendance rates are reportedly falling.

Religious right leaders have long claimed that they are the true victims of religious persecution in the U.S. They have not disguised their aim of using public resources, including government facilities and taxpayer money, to impose their values on other people, including other people’s children. Now that they have the Supreme Court they want, their goal may be within reach.

Katherine Stewart

Katherine Stewart is the author of "The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism" (Bloomsbury). Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic.

I'll repeat again as I often say, "curriculum is the reproduction of consciousness." This is a sobering and troubling read on what is getting taught to many students in many Christian K-12 schools.  

As we know from many years of battle before the Texas State Board of Education—about which I have blogged repeatedly in the context of the battle for Ethnic Studies, a right-wing agenda has similarly held sway in Texas' K-12 standards and text book selection battles. These battles are important and we as a polity need to be more involved, including running for these posts.

-Angela Valenzuela

These Textbooks In Thousands Of K-12 Schools Echo Trump’s Talking Points

Their religion-centered, anti-Democrat, anti-science, anti-multicultural message mirrors the Christian nationalism seen at the U.S. Capitol riot.

By Rebecca Klein | Huffington Post

01/15/2021 09:11 AM ET 

Christian textbooks used in thousands of schools around the country teach that President Barack Obama helped spur destructive Black Lives Matter protests, that the Democrats’ choice of 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton reflected their focus on identity politics, and that President Donald Trump is the “fighter” Republicans want, a HuffPost analysis has found.

The analysis, which focused on three popular textbooks from two major publishers of Christian educational materials ― Abeka and BJU Press ― looked at how the books teach the Trump era of politics. We found that all three are characterized by a skewed version of history and a sense that the country is experiencing an urgent moral decline that can only be fixed by conservative Christian policies. Language used in the books overlaps with the rhetoric of Christian nationalism, often with overtones of nativism, militarism and racism as well.

Scholars say textbooks like these, with their alternate versions of history and emphasis on Christian national identity, represent one small part of the conditions that lead to events like last week’s riot at the U.S. Capitol, an episode that was permeated with the symbols of Christian nationalism. Before storming the Capitol, some groups prayed in the name of Jesus and asked for divine protection. They flew Christian and “Jesus 2020” flags and pointed to Trump’s presidency as the will of God. The linkage between Christian beliefs and the violent attack on Congress has since pushed evangelical leaders to confront their own relationship with Trump and their support for the rioters.

“These textbooks made this brand of nationalism more mainstream,” said Kathleen Wellman, a Southern Methodist University history professor who is working on a book about the two Christian publishers. “I’m struck by how coherent of a worldview [the textbooks] promote and how thoroughly it resonates in current culture.” 

Representatives from BJU Press and Abeka did not respond to inquiries about how many schools use their products. However, a 2017 HuffPost investigation found that about one-third of Christian schools participating in private school choice programs used a curriculum created by these two publishers or a similar company called Accelerated Christian Education, amounting to around 2,400 schools. The number of schools using these company’s products that do not participate in a voucher program likely amounts to thousands more. (Voucher programs allow students to use taxpayer funds to attend private schools.) 

Both Abeka and BJU Press have ties to Christian colleges. Abeka was launched in the 1970s by Arlin and Beka Horton, who also founded Pensacola Christian College, a Florida institution that outlaws dancing and other “satanic practices,” such as astrology. BJU Press is affiliated with the evangelical Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, which famously lost its tax-exempt status after banning interracial dating in the ’80s, a policy it didn’t reverse until 2000.

“We unequivocally condemn any rhetoric that promotes illegal or violent behavior,” Amy Yohe, managing editor of Abeka Publishing, told HuffPost. “One of Abeka’s core goals is to teach constructive citizenship through textbooks that accurately represent the facts of history, enabling students to learn from the life lessons it teaches, both positive and negative.”

BJU Press did not respond to requests for comment.

However, scholars who study religion in America say that many of the ideas present in the publishers’ textbooks overlap with rhetoric heard from the rioters last week. Christian nationalists argue that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and has a special covenant with God, meaning that its citizens must implement a particular vision for this country or they will fall out of favor with God. The textbooks parrot these ideas, said Andrew Whitehead, associate professor of sociology and director of the Association of Religion Data Archives at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

“As we see in these textbooks, they’re afraid of outside forces or the U.S. won’t be what it should be,” said Whitehead. “There’s always a particular prescription ― they have to be on God’s good side. I think that’s a big part of it.”

Passages from the textbooks reflect an overarching worldview in which America is constantly moving away from a moral center, with Christians on the front lines beating back the forces of immorality. 

One passage in an 11th-grade U.S. history textbook from Abeka states, “Although many false philosophies were popular in America before 2000, the new millennium heralded a dramatic acceptance of immoral ideology on a national scale. … Three such philosophies are globalism, environmentalism, and postmodernism.” 

“Believing religion — particularly Christianity — to be divisive, globalists discourage its influence on public life,” it continues.

By parroting such conservative political views under the guise of Christianity, the textbooks give those views more legitimacy, making it difficult to distinguish between fact and opinion. While all textbooks, including the secular, cherry-pick narratives and have their biases, these ones fuse a religious worldview with Trumpian talking points using anti-media and anti-immigrant rhetoric. 

“Obviously it’s too simplistic to say these textbooks are causing people to think something, but they play a unique role in giving visual credibility to these ideas by having them be in a very traditionally trustworthy artifact,” said Adam Laats, professor of history and education at New York state’s Binghamton University. “There’s a sense that they couldn’t put it in a schoolbook if it wasn’t true.”

HuffPost’s previous investigation of these textbooks found that they also dismiss evolution as junk science, characterize Nelson Mandela as a “marxist agitator” who helped drive South Africa to “radical affirmative action,” and suggest that Satan hatched the idea of modern psychology. Many of the schools that use these books also ban LGBTQ students and families, and the books repeatedly condemn homosexuality. At one point in an Abeka textbook, slavery is described in purely economic terms, saying that “slaves seemed to be better investments than indentured servants.”

“I absolutely thought of these textbooks when watching what played out last week,” Wellman said. “It’s the anti-science culture, anti-elite, the identification of Christianity with military culture.”

Trump supporters gather near the east front door of the U.S. Capitol after groups breached the building's security on Jan. 6, 2021. 

(Win McNamee/Getty Images)

When discussing protests against the Iraq War and President George W. Bush’s low approval rating at the time, the Abeka 11th-grade U.S. history book points the finger at the media in part, saying that “much of the war opposition in America was the media, supported by a large number of Hollywood entertainers,” and that “spurred on by the media, many Americans wanted a change from the policies of the previous eight years.”

When discussing President Obama, the textbooks accuse him and his administration of stoking racial divisions. Below is a passage from that Abeka history book:

“Many Americans’ views about race relations had improved at the time that Obama was inaugurated. Unfortunately, Americans’ views of race relations declined after Obama came into office. Race riots in places such as Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, greatly escalated racial tensions and worsened strife between minorities and local police. President Obama’s attempts to resolve these problems often seemed to make the situation worse.” 

The books do not mention that such protests came in response to the deaths of unarmed Black men, including Michael Brown and Freddie Gray Jr., at the hands of police.

A high-school-level textbook from BJU Press also blames the Black Lives Matter movement for racial discord. It says:

“Despite President Obama’s call for racial harmony, his eight-year term of office saw an intensification of racial discord. Several controversial shootings of black men led to protests, some of which were violent and destructive with black communities bearing the brunt of most of the destruction. Groups such as Black Lives Matter sharpened the divide between police and citizens, and black and white, with divisive rhetoric. Mixed messages from the Obama administration, the Department of Justice in particular, seemed to increase the racial discord.”

The textbook does not mention that those “controversial” shootings were at the hands of police officers or explain the societal changes Black Lives Matter is trying to achieve with its supposedly “divisive rhetoric.” The book does not lay out for its teen readers what those “mixed messages” from the Obama administration were. 

Other targets of the textbooks include “globalists,” environmentalists and “multiculturalists.”

“According to multiculturalists, advancing the achievements of western civilization was an act of hatred toward other cultures. They encouraged people to define themselves by race, sex, or sexual orientation rather than by the pillars of western civilization, such as nation, family, and God,” reads the Abeka American history textbook. “However, many conservatives and Christians within America have attempted to quell these philosophies and once again turn America into a united, moral nation.”

The textbooks don’t give a full-throated endorsement of Trump, noting his crude remarks and previously liberal positions, but they ultimately represent him as someone on the side of Christians who is fighting for their values. One description from the Abeka textbook reads:

“Contrary to the high hopes that Obama’s presidency would bring the country together, Americans were bitterly divided leading up to the election in 2016. The Democratic Party had become increasingly concerned with identity politics, which is the idea that a person’s race, sex, and sexual orientation form the most important parts of their humanity and that politics should reflect that belief. Republicans, meanwhile, believed that their politicians had been too compromising with the increasingly radical left and that they needed a political outsider who would not back down or compromise with the Democrats. 

“... The Republican Party nominated real estate mogul and reality television star Donald Trump from New York, whose determination and bombastic mannerisms gave Republicans the fighter they wanted. As a businessman, Trump stated that he would ‘take the brand of the United States and make it great again.’ However, many conservatives were wary of Trump because of his occasional vulgar speech, his past immoral behavior, and his public support of homosexual marriage; but some were persuaded by Trump’s choice for his running mate — Indiana’s conservative governor Mike Pence.” 

Evangelical Christians were one of Trump’s most important voting blocks. Though white evangelicals only represent about 15% of the electorate, they made up about 23% of the vote during the 2020 election, according to the Associated Press. About 8 in 10 white evangelical Christians voted for Trump last year. 

A passage from an Abeka high school history book.

Images from the Capitol riot felt more familiar than shocking to 28-year-old Mel Garman, who grew up attending evangelical Christian schools.

There were the Christian flags, like the ones she used to pledge allegiance to in school, waving alongside American flags. The rioters’ rhetoric, focused around saving the country, defeating enemies and promoting the will of God, could have come straight out of one of her childhood classrooms, where she said she was taught a distorted version of history with nods to white Christian supremacy. Last week’s insurrectionists could have been her classmates, her teachers, her pastors. She felt a wave of recognition as she watched the pictures on social media. 

“Over the course of my life I can see how what I was taught in Christian schooling has impacted me, and the riots on Jan. 6 played into it. That whole belief system revolves around the idea that you want the rest of the world to think like you,” said Garman, who is now a social worker. “It’s a ‘the ends justify the means’ type of thing.”

Since Jan. 6, popular pro-Trump evangelical leaders have felt driven to judge the rioters’ actions, with some offering full-throttle condemnations and others issuing more temperate responses.

“The Secret Service had to escort the vice president of the United States to safety out of the Capitol building. Gunshots were fired. Tear gas was deployed in the Capitol Rotunda. People were killed. ... This was an assault on law. Attacking the Capitol was not patriotism; it was anarchy,” said Rev. John Hagee of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio during his Sunday sermon, before going on to rally support for law enforcement, according to the Associated Press.

Miles away in Kentucky, Brian Gibson, pastor and founder of His Church, blamed the riot on antifa agitators, a conspiracy theory for which there is no evidence. 

“You don’t get 2 million people together without having some radicals in the crowd or some simple people in the crowd that you could lead anywhere, right?” he said, also greatly exaggerating the size of the crowd that day.

In other places, teachers in public schools that don’t rely on Christian textbooks are struggling to explain to their students the dynamics that allowed such violence to occur. In Chicago, high school teacher Raven Althimer discussed the harsh realities of the insurrection with her students, who are Black.

“They think of when they had Black Lives Matter over the summer, peacefully protesting, and were tear-gassed. People are literally storming the Capitol and nothing is happening to them,” Althimer told HuffPost. “One of my students said, ‘If 20 of us had done that, we all would have been dead.’ I said, ‘No, 20 of you wouldn’t have even gotten that close.’”

White Nationalism. White Supremacy. White Power. by Jim Wallis

All Christians should indeed disavow Donald Trump, white nationalism, and purportedly Christian ideology that remains silent and willfully ignorant on the wrongful and immoral ideology of White supremacy that rests at the root of so much violence in our society.  Thanks to the Reverend Jim Wallis for standing up against this, making out this call to all people of good faith. 

- Angela

White Nationalism. White Supremacy. White Power.

COMMENTARY

By Jim Wallis 3-22-2019

Print

These are words that white people — particularly white Christians — don’t like to talk about, don’t like to see and hear, want to put in the past, want to dismiss as applying to only a few white people, and refuse to see as systemic, structural, or still deeply embedded in our American history and national culture. Certainly, then, they don’t want to acknowledge these combined forces as the greatest terrorist threat now to America’s safety, and the greatest political threat to genuine democracy around the world.

That is the heart of our problem.

From Oklahoma City to Charleston to Charlottesville to Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue to Christchurch, New Zealand, to Norway and other places in Europe, white nationalism and the white supremacy underneath it is a movement — and a growing one. White power has historically killed untold numbers of people and is still killing people today. It’s the most rising terrorist threat: white people who believe that their exclusive power and superiority is being taken away by the growth of more inclusive democracy.

The New Zealand white power killer, a 28-year-old white Australian man, murdered 50 Muslims while they were worshipping and injured 50 more in two deadly mosque shootings — the deadliest event of its kind in New Zealand’s history. He cited as inspiration Dylann Roof, a young white American man who murdered nine African-American Christians while they were studying the Bible at Mother Emanuel American Methodist Episcopal Church, in Charleston, S.C., after they had invited the stranger into their Bible study.

White power terrorist killings are on the rise in America and around the world, and our leaders are not showing any intent to address them. Here are the numbers:

• The Anti-Defamation League reports that in the United States, “right-wing extremists collectively have been responsible for more than 70 percent of the 427 extremist-related killings over the past 10 years, far outnumbering those committed by left-wing extremists or domestic Islamist extremists — even with the sharp rise of Islamist-extremist killings in the past five years.”
• While the United States spends a great deal of money countering radical extremists claiming the mantle of Islam abroad in military and intelligence actions, domestically the United States “relies almost entirely on the police to stop attacks like the one in Pittsburgh or jihadist-inspired attacks in Orlando or San Bernardino” according to Brookings Senior Fellow Eric Rosand.
• Under the Trump administration, the small federal program that existed to partner with local efforts to counter all forms of violent extremism has been shifted away from considering how to counter non jihadist-inspired terrorism.
• While precise numbers from the FBI’s anti-terrorism efforts aren’t available regarding white power violence specifically, it’s instructive and disturbing that of 5,000 currently open terrorism investigation, only 900, or less than 20 percent, are focused on domestic terrorism. This clashes with the recognition by ADL and many others that right-wing terrorism, especially of the white supremacist variety, is on the rise around the world.

As John Cohen, a former official at the Department of Homeland Security, said recently:

For those who subscribe to this white nationalism ideology, they feel a sense of empowerment when they hear elected officials in the U.S., Europe, Australia, and New Zealand promote their white extremist ideological viewpoints in mainstream political rhetoric. Increasingly we have experienced a dramatic increase across the West in hateful rhetoric and targeted acts of violence by individuals who do so specifically in response to what they see as an attack on white society.

Just days before the New Zealand terrorist murders, a detailed article by Adam Serwer appeared in The Atlantic titled, “White Nationalism’s Deep American Roots,” showing how deeply American white nationalism is embedded in our history, tracing it from its roots to the present. It even demonstrates how Adolf Hitler was inspired and instructed by this history of white nationalism in America that helped him to construct his racialized Nazism.

Serwer concludes his piece with a reality check about where the dangers to our nation have often historically originated, along with a stark warning:

External forces have rarely been the gravest threat to the social order and political foundations of the United States. Rather, the source of greatest danger has been those who would choose white purity over a diverse democracy. When Americans abandon their commitment to pluralism, the world notices, and catastrophe follows.

Significantly, Donald Trump was also cited by the New Zealand killer. He called him “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” In response to that, Trump was asked if he thought that the white nationalists were a growing threat around the world. Donald Trump replied, “I don’t really. I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems. It’s certainly a terrible thing.” Clearly, Donald Trump is seeking to minimize the terrorist threat of white nationalism in America and around the world.

Let’s be clear: I have heard nobody say that Donald Trump is personally responsible for the New Zealand tragedy. But, as many on all sides of politics have pointed out, words have meaning, and politicians, especially presidents, must be held accountable for their words and rhetoric as it has such impact on other people’s thinking and behavior.

Donald Trump has proved his identification with white nationalism from his demonizing of immigrants, to making his anti-immigrant lies the central message of his midterm election strategy, to deciding to make his symbolic wall the heart of his vision and legacy, to his anti-Muslim ban, to his expressed hostility and falsehoods toward the Muslim religion, to beginning his political career with championing the racialized birther movement seeking to undermine the citizenship and credibility of Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States — the list goes on.

The evidence of Donald Trump promoting and running on white nationalism, with all of the above and much more, is in.

In sharp contrast to Trump’s anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies, former President George W. Bush spoke out unusually this week in defense of immigration, and its role in making the United States the nation it is today, saying at an immigrant swearing-in ceremony, “Amid all the complications of policy, may we never forget that immigration is a blessing and a strength.”

So too, immediately after the horrific 9/11 attack in a speech titled, “Islam is Peace,” President Bush had the courage to defend both Islam and the dignity of Muslim Americans saying, “America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country. … Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don't represent the best of America, they represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior.”

Our current leaders should take note. Whether Donald Trump deeply believes in white supremacy or anything other than himself is a question about his soul that I won’t try to answer. But it is absolutely clear now, if it wasn’t to some before the election of 2016, that he is the most visible and powerful political leader of white nationalism, white supremacy, and white power. And his top allies and aides, like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller and others, are all further documentation.

In a spirit of Christian love and accountability, we must tell all Christians who still publicly or privately support President Trump: Your support can no longer be justified by his appointment of federal judges. It is not justified by his change of mind and politically convenient alliance with your Christian opposition to abortion. It is not justified by his alliance with you against same-sex marriage. It is not justified by his strong advocacy of religious liberty for Christians but not for Muslims — in fact that is explicit hypocrisy. And it is certainly not justified by Donald Trump’s tax policies that make the richest people in America even richer. You can no longer look away from his consistent amoral personal and public behavior.

READ: Christians, Islamophobia Is Our Problem

I believe the Faustian bargain for power, undertaken by the white evangelical religious right, must be exposed and opposed on the basis of Donald Trump’s support for white nationalism, which is in direct disobedience to the reconciling gospel and person of Jesus Christ. Even some political and media leaders, both Republican and Democrat, are now saying that Donald Trump’s life and behavior is a direct contrast to the Beatitudes, Sermon on the Mount, and Matthew 25.

I am asking why the white evangelical leaders of the religious right haven’t drawn a moral line in the sand on the racial idolatry of white nationalism and supremacy that is directly and distinctively anti-Christ — as they have with issues like abortion and same-sex marriage? That choice not to draw a moral line sends a clear signal to people of color around the world in the body of Christ as to what is a political deal breaker for white evangelical American Christians and what is not.

Donald Trump is an evangelist of white nationalism and white supremacy and, therefore, his message must be rejected on grounds of faith by responsible Christians around the world and here in the U.S. And the bargain for power made by the white evangelical leaders who unquestioningly support Donald Trump must become a debate within the American church — the integrity of our commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ is clearly now at stake.

Jim Wallis

Jim Wallis is president of Sojourners. His new Audible spoken-word series, Jim Wallis In Conversation, is available now, as is his book, America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America. Follow Jim on Twitter @JimWallis.