Talk of 'Christian nationalism' is getting louder—but what does the term really mean? by Eric McDaniel

Friends,

Check out this helpful piece on Christian nationalism that has been widely on display beginning with the Trump presidency. It has deep roots, to be sure, but has found fertile ground with white evangelicals that support Trump. As expressed by Eric McDaniel in this November 2022 Chronicle of Higher Education piece, Christian Nationalism is a political ideology that merges white or EuroAmerican Christians with national identity.

Though not addressed by McDaniel, I think it appropriate to add "Dominionism" to the mix. This, too, is a theological and political ideology that akin to white nationalism seeks political control over all aspects of society and that finds expression in the "Seven Mountains Mandate" as first articulated by Wallnau and Johnson (2013) in their book titled, Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate. All Dominionists are Christian nationalists, but the latter are not all Dominionists.

Though implied, I also think it important to directly call out white supremacy and racism as inextricably tied to both Christian nationalism and Dominionism.

Finally, it's sad to learn of a church that is so fearful of a browning America that it resorts to rationalizing toxic political ideologies like these that we also know are tearing the church apart. If you have any doubt about this, I highly recommend that you read Tim Alberta's study of the white evangelical church of today in his powerful book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory. The divisiveness of these ideologies, while strong, is at an all-time high.

-Angela Valenzuela

References

Alberta, T. (2023). The kingdom, the power, and the glory: American evangelicals in an age of extremism. Harper.Wallnau, L. & Johnson, B. (2013). Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate. Destiny Image Publishers.

Talk of 'Christian nationalism' is getting louder—but what does the term really mean?

Eric McDaniel, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts

A man holds a sign promoting the widely disproven belief that election fraud occurred during the 2020 General election, in Saint Paul, United States, on January 16, 2021.

NurPhoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Nov. 6, 2022 | Chronicle of Higher Education

(THE CONVERSATION) According to a May 2022 poll from the University of Maryland, 61% of Republicans favor declaring the United States a Christian nation – even though 57% recognized that it would be unconstitutional. Meanwhile, 31% of all Americans and 49% of Republicans believe “God intended America to be a new promised land where European Christians could create a society that would be an example for the rest of the world,” a recent survey from the Public Religion Research Institute found.

Those statistics underscore the influence of a set of ideas called “Christian nationalism,” which has been in the spotlight leading up to November 2022 midterm elections. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has openly identified as a Christian nationalist and called for the Republican Party to do the same. Others, like Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert and Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, have not claimed that label but have embraced its tenets, such as dismissing the separation of church and state.


Few Americans use the term “Christian nationalist” to describe themselves, but many more have embraced some aspects of this worldview. There is widespread confusion over what the label really means, making it important to clearly explain. My work on how race and religion shape Americans’ attitudes toward government led me to study Christian nationalism, and to co-write a book detailing how it shapes Americans’ views of themselves, their government and their place in the world.

Christian nationalism is more than religiosity and patriotism. It is a worldview that guides how people believe the nation should be structured and who belongs there.
Mission from God

The phenomenon of white Christian nationalism has been studied by historians, sociologists, political scientists scholars of religion and many others. While their definitions may differ, they share certain elements.

Christian nationalism is a religious and political belief system that argues the United States was founded by God to be a Christian nation and to complete God’s vision of the world. In this view, America can be governed only by Christians, and the country’s mission is directed by a divine hand.

In my recent book “The Everyday Crusade: Christian Nationalism in American Politics,” written with fellow political scientists Irfan Nooruddin and Allyson Shortle, we demonstrate that this worldview has existed since the Colonies and played a central role in developing American identity. During the American Revolution, political and religious leaders linked independence from the British as part of God’s plan to set the world right.

From then on, many Americans’ belief that God favors their nation has guided their view of pivotal events – such as supporting Manifest Destiny, the idea that the U.S. was destined to expand west across North America; or framing the “war on terror” as a conflict between Christians and non-Christians in the 21st century.

Today, only about 4 in 10 people in the U.S. are white Christians. The thought of no longer being the majority has prompted some of them to see Christian nationalism as the only way to get the nation back on the right track. Christian nationalism typically restricts adherents’ view of who can be considered a “true” American, limiting it to people who are white, Christian and U.S.-born, and whose families have European roots.
Dissidents, disciples and laity

The majority of Americans do not embrace Christian nationalism. Even so, its echoes appear everywhere from American flags in church pulpits, to the Pledge of Allegiance, to “In God We Trust” on money, license plates and government vehicles.

My book co-authors and I argue that Christian nationalist ideas exist along a spectrum. For our book project, we developed a measure we refer to as “American Religious Exceptionalism” and used it to analyze nationally representative and state surveys from 2008 to 2020. Based on that data, we categorized U.S. citizens into three groups: dissidents, laity and disciples.

“Dissidents” reject the idea of the U.S. having a divine founding and plan, and express a more open understanding of what it means to be an American. Among the nationally representative samples, the proportion of dissidents ranges from 37% to 49% of the population.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the “disciples” strongly believe in the divine founding and guidance of the U.S. and express more restrictive ideas about who can be a “real” American and who should be allowed to enter the country. Disciples, who represent between 10% and 14% of the population, are more likely to see immigrants as a threat to American culture, and to express concern about the decreasing percentage of Americans who are white and Christian.

Those in the “laity” in the middle represent between 37% and 52% of the population. They demonstrate support for many of the same views the disciples do, such as anti-immigrant, anti-Black, and anti-Muslim attitudes, but less intensely.
Master salesman

Politicians can be thought about as entrepreneurs constantly looking for new consumers. Some of them have found a devoted audience among the disciples, who tend to be politically engaged and eager to vote for a candidate who will advance their view of the nation.

Former President Donald Trump has been particularly successful at attracting voters who are sympathetic to Christian nationalist ideas, by portraying himself as a defender of Christians “under siege.” In June 2020, in the midst of upheaval over police killings of unarmed Black Americans, tear gas was used to disperse protesters to allow then-President Trump to have his picture taken holding a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. His open animus toward Muslims has also helped bring Christian nationalists from the fringes into the mainstream.

Images linking Christianity with the nation and with Trump, as part of a larger divine mission, were on full display during the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In the most extreme Christian nationalist views, the government must be brought into alignment with this ideology – even if force is necessary.

Our research found that 68% of disciples agree that force may be necessary to maintain the traditional American way of life. Most disciples express strong support for representative democracy; however, 48% of disciples support the idea of military rule, compared with 6% of dissidents.
Heading to the polls

Christian nationalism’s movement toward the mainstream is evident in the 2022 midterms, as several candidates have announced their support for Christian nationalism or made statements highly in line with it. Not only does such rhetoric mobilize disciples, but it has the potential to persuade the laity that these candidates will best represent their interests. An atmosphere of increasing partisan polarization, where political debates are sometimes portrayed as between angels and demons destroying the country, provides a fertile environment.

What this means for American democracy is unclear. But as some white and Christian Americans fear a loss of status, I believe Christian nationalism is coming back – attempting to reclaim its “holy land.”

The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. The Conversation is wholly responsible for the content.

"Nazi Germany and American Indians," by Dr. Robert J. Miller

Yesterday, I showed my students the video, "Our Spirits Don't Speak English," which documents the inhumanity against children subjected to the American Indian Boarding school experience in our country. In the process of learning about this poignant documentary, I came across this piece by Shawnee Tribe member and Arizona State University Professor Robert J. Miller.

In the context of providing commentary on James Q. Whitman's well-researched and documented text titled, Hitler’s American Model:The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law, Miller underscores a key finding on how Nazis made use of U.S. laws, including American Indian law, in the formulation of anti-Jewish policy. I've read and was repulsed by Whitman's book—and have posted on it to this blog previously.

This should serve as a sobering reminder of the politics of knowledge—about which we continue to struggle—and how this has historically been policed by policies, textbook adoption processes, conservative school boards and state boards of education, and white supremacist ideology, in general. It's shameful to consider that we are only now learning about this specific connection between U.S. and Nazi jurisprudence, but can also see why those in power, presumably in both the U.S. and Germany, have been reluctant to expose these horrific chapters of history.

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-Angela Valenzuela

AUG 14, 2019

Nazi Germany and American Indians

It is intriguing, yet profoundly disturbing, that American Indian law played a role in the Nazi formulation of Jewish policies and laws says Robert J. Miller

Photo: robERT J. MILLER

Most Americans would probably be shocked to learn that in the early 1930s Nazi scholars, lawyers, and officials were heavily influenced by United States law when they were developing policies and laws concerning Jewish people. Most Americans would also no doubt be surprised to discover that when Nazis were turning their racist ideas into legislative proposals and laws they were carefully studying federal Indian laws and American state laws that discriminated against American Indians.

A 2017 book by a Yale law professor, James Q. Whitman, Hitler’s American Model:
The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law lays out a convincing argument that Nazis studied in minute detail American federal and state laws that discriminated against African-American, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Puerto Rican, and other racial groups in the United States. Whitman, however, only mentions Native Americans on eleven pages in his book according to the book’s index.

In this article, I am undertaking the first step of what I anticipate will be a much larger study on how, and how extensively, federal and state laws and policies regarding American Indians influenced Nazi scholars, lawyers, and officials in formulating and enacting Nazi laws.

According to Professor Whitman, the Nazi laws that best exemplify its racist goals and tactics versus Jews were the Nuremberg Laws that were enacted and announced in September 1935. These laws established two important principles. First, the Reich Citizenship Law created a distinction between Reich citizens and mere German nationals. Under this law, Jewish people became nationals with restricted political rights and were not German citizens. Second, the Blood Law criminalized marriage and sexual relations between Jews and Germans. 

Whitman proves that for years building up to the 1935 Nuremberg Laws that Nazi lawyers, jurists, scholars, and officials were studying and writing research materials, articles, and books on United States immigration laws from the very first one in 1790, through the 1870s, 1880s, 1917, 1921, and 1924. Nazis also studied U.S. state and federal laws that allowed racial discrimination and limits on the citizenship rights of minorities. The Nazis were especially interested in American anti-miscegenation laws (bans on inter-racial marriage). Such bans existed in North America as early as 1664 in Maryland, in 1691 in Virginia, and right up to the early 1930s when the Nazis were studying them. In fact, Nazi scholars expressly cited the statutes of thirty American states that banned inter-racial marriages in the early 1930s, as well as many other aspects of U.S. race law: Heinrich Krieger, Das Rassenrecht in den Vereigten Staaten, in Verwaltungsarchiv (1934); Heinrich Krieger, Das Rassenrecht in den Vereigten Staaten (Race Law in the United States) (1936); Johann von Leers, Blut und Rasse in der Gesetzgebung. Ein Gang durch die Volkergeschichte (Blood and Race: A Tour through the History of Peoples) (1936); and Herbert Kier, Volk, Rasse und Staat, in Nationalsozialistisches Handbuch fur Recht und Gesetzgebung (1935).  

Nazis and Indians

The Nazis’ interest in the United States policies and laws regarding American Indians originated with Adolf Hitler himself. In his book Mein Kampf, Hitler discussed U.S. laws and policies and noted that the United States was a racial model for Europe and that it was “the one state” in the world that was creating the kind of racist society that the Nazi regime wanted to establish. In a 1928 speech, Hitler stated that Americans had “gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousand, and now keep the modest remnant under observation in a cage ...” Other scholars agree that for “generations of German imperialists, and for Hitler himself, the exemplary land empire was the United States of America.” 

Interestingly, the German word lebensraum (living space) became a Nazi rallying cry that demanded more land in Eastern Europe for German expansion and Germany’s growing population. This Nazi policy clearly evokes the American motto of Manifest Destiny that led to military actions, massacres, and official federal policies and laws to remove Indians from the path of American expansion. American Manifest Destiny led to attempted extermination of Indians, to Indian nations and Indians being confined to reservations, and to federal policies to allot and confiscate many of those reservations, and to terminate Indian nations political status.

Following Hitler’s lead, Nazi scholars, officials, jurists, and lawyers also delved deeply into United States Indian law when developing the 1935 Nuremberg Laws. The most important meeting in the process of drafting and enacting those Laws was held on June 5, 1934. At this meeting, the seventeen attendees reviewed extensive research materials that analyzed United States law and American states’ laws. Along with other Nazi scholarship, the materials presented at this meeting specifically highlighted and cited the laws of thirty U.S. states that criminalized or civilly nullified inter-racial marriages. Significantly, seven of those thirty state statutes also expressly outlawed white Americans from marrying Indians. 

Other Nazi scholarly research also highlighted U.S. and state laws that treated Indians differently than other American citizens. The Nazis were very interested in how the United States had gotten away with discriminating against Indians for several centuries based on race and bloodlines. Consequently, it appears irrefutable that Nazi officials, jurists, and lawyers were influenced when developing the Nuremberg Laws, at least partially, by American Indian laws and policies.

Heinrich Krieger

“Heinrich Krieger … was the single most important figure in the Nazi assimilation of American race law …” James Q. Whitman, Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law.

A review of Heinrich Krieger’s career adds significantly to the thesis that Nazi scholars and officials were heavily influenced by United States Indian law.

Krieger was a crucial actor in the process of Nazis studying and adopting American racial policies and Indian laws. Krieger researched and drafted the most important materials that German officials, jurists, attorneys, and scholars used to debate and formalize the legislative proposals and strategies for the Nuremberg Laws. For example, Krieger’s research, written materials, and conclusions were no doubt incorporated into the conference materials distributed to the seventeen attendees, and discussed at length, at the crucial June 5, 1934 meeting. The attendees of this meeting were provided with Krieger’s and other scholars research on American laws that discriminated against minorities and Indians. In fact, Krieger published his research and findings on American racial laws contemporaneously with the June 1934 Nuremberg Laws meeting in his 1934 article, Race Law in the United States. He later developed and expanded his arguments further in his 1936 book of the same name. 

Most importantly for my argument, Krieger was intimately familiar with American Indian Law. He published a twenty-nine page law review article on Indian law in March 1935, Principles of Indian Law and the Act of June 18, 1934. He researched and wrote this article during 1933–34 when he was an exchange student at the University of Arkansas Law School and while he was also conducting research at the Library of Congress to publish his dissertation on “American Racial Law.” It is beyond belief that he would not have included his findings on Indian law in the materials he provided to Nazi officials for the June 1934 meeting when they discussed and planned what became the Nuremberg Laws.

In his law review article, Krieger discussed a wide array of issues regarding American Indians’ U.S. citizenship and their rights, the discriminatory treatment of Indians and Indian nations by the United States, and myriad federal Indian laws and policies. After all this research and analysis, he concluded that United States Indian law was racial law, and that the United States discriminated against and treated Indians and Indian nations differently from other American citizens based on their alleged racial differences from white Americans. (“the Indian law is exactly what its name indicates: a racial law; and there is no way out of the extra-constitutional situation …” Emphasis in original.) Krieger also concluded: “The proper nature of the tribal Indians’ status is that of a racial group placed under a special police power of the United States.” It appears certain that what Krieger learned from his intensive study of federal Indian law and the state laws that discriminated against Indians, and what he emphasized to Nazi officials, was that the United States discriminated against its Indian citizens because of their race and had always done so. Thus, he concluded that Nazi Germany should be justified in doing the same against German Jews.

How intriguing, yet at the same time how profoundly disturbing, that American Indian law played a role in the Nazi formulation of Jewish policies and laws. Further research will hopefully reveal just how large a role United States Indian laws and policies played in that disturbing chapter of world history.

Robert J. Miller, Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, is Professor Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.

Mexican Immigrant Replenishment and the Continuing Significance of Ethnicity and Race1 | American Journal of Sociology: Vol 113, No 6

I was just reading this article by Stanford University's Dr. Tomas Jimenez published last year in one of the leading journals of sociology.

So yes, Mexican immigration is definitely a force in the U.S.-Mexican/Mexican American community.  If you look at these maps, however (see below), it's not so much "immigration," but rather that a sociopolitical boundary called the "U.S.-Mexico border"—itself an artifact of violence and aggression—that divides us.  

This fact of history that is linked to imperialist aggression and so-called "manifest destiny," perennially establishes an inescapable circumstance of "replenishment" that no fence, wall, or border will ever eliminate.  Nor should it.  We are well served in this country by this in so many ways.

As for our Central American "emigrés," they are our ancestral cousins and should be welcomed as they have never left their ancestral homeland, not even when they cross into the U.S.  The same applies to all Indigenous peoples of this continent.

History matters.


-Angela Valenzuela

Mexican Immigrant Replenishment and the Continuing Significance of Ethnicity and Race1 | American Journal of Sociology: Vol 113, No 6

Tomás R. Jiménez, "Mexican Immigrant Replenishment and the Continuing Significance of Ethnicity and Race," American Journal of Sociology 113, no. 6 (May 2008): 1527-1567.

"The literature on assimilation and ethnic identity formation largely assumes that the durability of ethnic boundaries is a function of the assimilation measures that sociologists commonly employ. But this literature fails to account adequately for the role of immigration patterns in explaining the durability and nature of ethnic boundaries. Using 123 in‐depth interviews with later‐generation Mexican Americans, this article shows that Mexican immigrant replenishment shapes ethnic boundaries and ethnic identity formation. The sizable immigrant population sharpens intergroup boundaries through the indirect effects of nativism and by contributing to the continuing significance of race in the lives of later‐generation Mexican Americans. The presence of a large immigrant population also creates intragroup boundaries that run through the Mexican‐origin population and that are animated by expectations about ethnic authenticity. The article illustrates the importance of immigrant replenishment to processes of assimilation and ethnic identity formation."

America came to Hispanics, not the other way around, by Julio Noboa

Just came across this January 20, 2019 piece by Dr. Julio Noboa that notes the importance of history. What we know today as "Texas," "America" or the "United States" and so on is actually the shortest part of our history from an Indigenous perspective as conveyed by the descendants of the original peoples to this continent, myself included.  This dreadful history of forceful incorporation to the modern nation state was not only on the basis of violent armed struggle, genocide, and colonization, but continues to be so as the anguishing humanitarian crisis along the U.S,.-Mexico border attests.

Let's stop as a country fighting the Indigenous peoples of this continent.  Let's honor through our policies and practices the quest for respect and dignity within and across our many struggles.  Let's make things just and right and let's heal the Earth, beginning by disavowing extractive, violent ways of relating to her and to each other.

Sí se puede!  Yes we can!

-Angela Valenzuela

America came to Hispanics, not the other way around

By Julio Noboa | San Antonio Express-News

 Published 12:00 am CST, Sunday, January 20, 2019

The Hispanic presence in the United States is inextricably linked to pivotal events in our nation’s history. Last year, 2018, marked two important events that forever changed the destiny of Mexico and Puerto Rico, the homelands of the two largest Hispanic groups in our nation. These events resulted in millions of Latinx people being absorbed into this territorial and cultural expanse we call America.

For Mexican-Americans, Feb. 2, 2018, marked 170 years since the signing in 1848 of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo at the end of the Mexican American War. The U.S. expanded to include almost half of Mexico’s territory, bringing into the nation vast regions of the West, including California, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

Another important but unrecognized result was the birth of the Mexican-American people, many of whom still identify as Chicanos — constituting a whole new ethnic identity within the American cultural and political landscape. However, in violation of the treaty’s promises and assurances, Chicanos’ rights to their language and culture were soon threatened and abrogated, and much of their properties and lands were lost through duplicity, intimidation and outright violence. Mexican-Americans are still struggling to gain their legitimate claim to a host of human rights, and classroom history books continue to exclude their cultural, economic and military contributions to this nation.

For Puerto Ricans, particularly most of us who identify as Boricuas, July 25 marked 120 years since Gen. Nelson Miles’ troops landed on the southern shores of our island, in the final chapter of the Spanish American War.

Claiming to bring the blessings of American civilization, Miles disbanded a democratically elected council of Puerto Rican deputies and replaced them with a military government. Nearly two decades later, the Jones Act of 1917 granted Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship. Boricuas were not permitted to vote on this most crucial decision.

Following a period of imperial neglect, U.S. corporations came, conquered and gained control of most of the arable land, turning it into a sugar cane cash crop. While our labor was being exploited and our resources extracted, the colonial government instituted an English-only policy in public education, decimating our native language and culture. For decades it was only the U.S. president — for whom Boricuas could not vote — who appointed the governor of the island.

Last year marked 70 years since Puerto Ricans were finally permitted in 1948 to elect their own governor, Luis Muñoz Marin. However, the empire obligated him to suppress the legitimate movement for Puerto Rican independence to the point that during the repression, it was a crime to sing the national anthem or simply fly the Puerto Rican flag. Still, mounting economic pressures forced millions of Boricuas, beginning in the 1950s, to leave their homeland in search of employment in the cold industrialized cities of the North.

Both the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo and Miles’ landing in Puerto Rico were culminating events of two wars: the Mexican American War and the Spanish American War. The concept of Manifest Destiny — so often invoked during the 19th century to justify conquest, genocide and domination — made these wars seem inevitable.

The Manifest Destiny of this nation was in the past two centuries — and even as conceived today — to be one of expansion, domination and hemispheric hegemony. Yet, for many Hispanic Americans, our cultural destiny revolves around affirmation of our culture and language, preservation of our identity and hemispheric cooperation.

Among the most essential, pivotal issues for Boricuas and Chicanos are those that were initiated and defined by those two wars of conquest. Mexican-Americans are more concerned about immigration and citizenship issues and Puerto Ricans are more focused on the complex conundrum of their island’s political status. Yet in both cases they can legitimately proclaim that “before we came to America, America came to us!”

It is not enough to simply know history, we should become aware of the relationship historical events have to the problems of today. As a multicultural nation of immigrants and natives, we need to understand well the lessons of history and commit to utilizing peaceful cooperation, rather than violent domination, for resolving the problems of diversity that await.

Julio Noboa is a recently retired assistant professor of social studies at the University of Texas at El Paso and, in the past, a frequent contributor to the Express-News opinion pages.