Threat of White Christian Nationalism to US Democracy: A Recent Public Discussion

A week ago, Georgetown University's Center on Faith and Justice and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty co-sponsored a public discussion of white Christian nationalism in the US. Participants: included Rev. Michael B. Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church; Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee; Dr. Samuel Perry, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Oklahoma and Rev. Jim Wallis, Chair in Faith and Justice at the McCourt School of Public Policy and Director of the Georgetown University Center on Faith and Justice. I recommend the whole video, and would like to highlight the following statements by Michael Curry:

What we’re actually describing is an ideology that’s not really a religion, but it looks like a religion and uses and invokes language and symbols that have religious trappings. … I think some innocent people are being fooled by it.

That is a Christianity that isn’t characterized by giving my life to Jesus or wanting to be a good disciple, but it is about a white Christian ethno-culture. For white Americans, it seems to connect with this idea of nostalgia for an earlier time when the right people were in charge and when the right cultural values held sway.