Dismantling Christian Nationalism: Insights from Dr. Bruce Ellis Benson
The discourse surrounding Christian nationalism emerges as a pivotal concern in contemporary society, as elucidated in our inaugural episode of Hot Spots with Kay Brown. Joined by the erudite Dr. Bruce Ellis Benson, we delve into the insidious implications of this ideology, which intertwines Christian tenets with national identity, thereby advocating for a societal framework that privileges Christian values and perspectives. Throughout our conversation, we explore the alarming consequences of Christian nationalism on democracy, personal freedoms, and the rule of law, particularly in light of the influence exerted by figures aligned with this movement. Furthermore, we examine the societal division it fosters, rendering individuals who do not conform to a specific demographic as second-class citizens. Ultimately, we aim to cultivate awareness and inspire collective action against the encroachment of authoritarianism, emphasizing the necessity of unified resistance to safeguard democratic principles and human rights.
Takeaways:
- The podcast delves into the intricate relationship between Christian Nationalism and its impacts on democracy and personal freedoms.
- Christian Nationalism is portrayed as an ideology merging Christian beliefs with national identity, often compromising the core tenets of Christianity.
- Dr. Bruce Ellis Benson articulates the detrimental effects of Christian Nationalism on marginalized communities and democratic values.
- The episode underscores the necessity of awareness and collective action to counter the rise of authoritarianism and theocracy.
- Listeners are encouraged to engage in civic behavior and push back against the policies influenced by Christian Nationalism.
- The conversation highlights the importance of reclaiming the narrative around Christianity to ensure it aligns with its foundational principles of love and compassion.
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians
- Heritage Foundation
- Project 2025
- Wheaton College
- Southern Seminary
- Hillsdale College
- Patrick Henry College
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Welcome to hot spots on the United America Network.
Speaker B:From the shifting landscapes of politics and culture to the urgent challenges facing our planet and our communities, this is where the conversations that matter most come alive.
Speaker B:With her experience as a journalist, legislator, and activist, Kay Brown brings sharp insight, uplifting perspective, and unflinching courage to the issues shaping our future.
Speaker B:Get ready for candid conversations, bold ideas, and the pushback our times demand.
Speaker B:Now, here's Kay.
Speaker C:Hello.
Speaker C:I'm so glad you're here today in spite of all that's going on around us.
Speaker C:I hope you're having a good day.
Speaker C:I'm Kay Brown, your host of hotspots, where we'll be discussing the unfolding political debacle from our spectacular desert location in Riverside County, California.
Speaker C:I picked the name of this podcast to denote connectivity and relevance.
Speaker C:And our first hot topic, Christian Nationalism, is ever more relevant considering the passel of Christian nationalists that Trump has put in charge.
Speaker C:Christian nationalism is a through line that connects the authoritarian takeover of our government and the unrelenting assaults on democracy, the rule of law, our health, and our personal freedoms.
Speaker C:In this podcast today, we'll consider some of the egregious effects of Christian nationalism on people's lives.
Speaker C:Before we get into Christian nationalism, I want to acknowledge that I live and work near downtown Palm Springs on a beautiful piece of land owned by and that I lease from the Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians, the land's historic and ongoing stewards.
Speaker C:I moved to Palm Springs earlier this year after living 48 years in Alaska, where I was a state legislator for 10 years, and I'm loving Palm Springs.
Speaker C:It's a real hotspot.
Speaker C:In this podcast, we're going to work on raising awareness about the situations around us that need attention and addressing the question on so many minds, what can I do?
Speaker C:What can we do together to stop this slide into authoritarianism and theocracy?
Speaker C:It's my belief it begins with awareness.
Speaker C:Awareness that touches the heart, precedes action, and it's going to take unified, bold action to move us forward.
Speaker C:So what is Christian nationalism?
Speaker C:It's an ideology that combines the elements of Christianity with national identity and advocates a society that promotes Christian values in public life and a privileged position for Christians.
Speaker C:And as it's playing out in the United States today, it blends authoritarianism with governance, conservative Christian beliefs and values.
Speaker C:And it's playing out in so many different aspects.
Speaker C:In the schools, in our immigration policy, our healthcare and science, our family policies and social structure, the climate in so many ways.
Speaker C: arted, just check out Project: Speaker C:It calls for destroying the administrative state, which is certainly happening, withdrawing the United States from global affairs and ending environmental and business regulations.
Speaker C:It proposed to disrupt and destroy the government as we know it and center a Christian heteronormative male dominated family as the primary element of society.
Speaker C:So here we are, sliding into an authoritarian theocracy.
Speaker C:I'm happy to have with me today Dr. Bruce Ellis Benson, an author, philosopher, activist who knows a lot about this subject.
Speaker C:He teaches or has taught philosophy of religions and he's taught at a number of universities, the University of Nottingham, the University of St. Andrews, Loyola Marymount University, Wheaton College and Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
Speaker C:He's the co author of 14 books and over 100 book chapters, articles and reviews.
Speaker C:He has a substack called the Anti Christian and I'm happy to welcome him today.
Speaker C:He's been personally affected by this situation, the moral code that Christian nationalism is seeking to impose on all of the rest of us.
Speaker C:And we'll be getting into his views and understanding on where we're at and what we can do about it.
Speaker C:So welcome Bruce, thank you for joining me.
Speaker A:Thank you so much, Kay.
Speaker A:It's a pleasure to be here with you.
Speaker C:So how do you see Christian nationalism today and where it stands in relation to the other religions of the world?
Speaker C:Is it really a religion?
Speaker A:It isn't a religion, I don't think.
Speaker A:I think it's actually a kind of anti religion.
Speaker A:It's definitely an anti Christian thing.
Speaker A:I refer to it as anti Christian nationalism because I think to be a Christian nationalist you have to reject most of Jesus core teachings.
Speaker A:And once you do that, I don't think you're Christian anymore.
Speaker A:How does it come about?
Speaker A:Well, it comes about from this narrative that's been around for a long, long time, namely that the US is a Christian country, that it was founded by people to be a Christian country.
Speaker A:Now you have to ignore a lot of facts in order to think this.
Speaker A: For instance, in: Speaker A:17%.
Speaker A:That's less than 1/5.
Speaker A:So it's hard to call that a Christian nation.
Speaker A:But many of the people who identify as Christian nationalists wouldn't a know the term Christian nationalist.
Speaker A:So if you said are you a Christian nationalist?
Speaker A:They'd go, oh, no, I'm not that.
Speaker A:And many of them are actually not very Christian.
Speaker A:If you were to ask them very much about, well, so what does Jesus teach?
Speaker A:They would actually not be that well aware.
Speaker A:So Christian nationalism represents a kind of repudiation of what Jesus taught.
Speaker A:One of the problems with Christian nationalism is that it just assumes it's the only version of Christianity, and it is really only just one version, and a relatively small version at that.
Speaker A:But if you think you have the truth, then everyone else can be put aside.
Speaker A:You can just ignore them.
Speaker A:So one of the things that I find really interesting about Christian nationalism is this desire to go back to Old Testament morality, the desire to make the Old Testament laws the laws of the United States of America.
Speaker A:This is odd because if you think about at least what Paul was doing in the New Testament is he was saying, we are no longer under the law.
Speaker A:Paul explicitly repudiating the idea that you had to follow the law.
Speaker A:So it's a very, very odd thing to then come along and say, well, Paul didn't get this right.
Speaker A:We need to actually go back and follow the law again.
Speaker C:So how do you see Christian nationalism, the things that it promotes and tries to implement, affecting people's lives?
Speaker C:How did it affect your life?
Speaker A:So I grew up in the evangelical world.
Speaker A:My father was a seminary professor.
Speaker A:Before that had been a pastor.
Speaker A:And I ended up teaching at Wheaton College in Illinois.
Speaker A:And when you're at a place like that, you're constantly aware of the fact that everything you say is being monitored.
Speaker A:And I wasn't always good enough at not saying the things I wasn't supposed to say.
Speaker A: sets the standard for Project: Speaker A:I came to realize that homosexuality was probably the worst thing in the entire world.
Speaker A:And so of course, I couldn't be a homosexual.
Speaker A:And so it wasn't until after I got married and figured out, I don't think this is working, that it really occurred to me that, yeah, I actually was gay.
Speaker A:I realize that seems crazy, but that's the kind of world I was in.
Speaker A:And when you get set up with this kind of mentality and you're told that being homosexual is just the worst thing imaginable, there's no way you could say, oh, well, I guess I'm one of those.
Speaker A:So that that affected me greatly, the fact that, as I say, my speech was constantly being monitored.
Speaker A:I knew this because students would go to the administration.
Speaker A:Then I'd hear back from the administration.
Speaker A:The students had said that I said something.
Speaker A:So that's how it affected me in my life.
Speaker A:Unfortunately, it also affected me in the sense that at a certain point the college no longer wanted me to be there.
Speaker C:So what we see today in the policies that are being implemented, for example, getting rid of dei, diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the federal government and just excising those, those policies, how does that affect people who are not male, white, heterosexual Christians?
Speaker C:It seems like everybody who doesn't fit into that those categories or all of those categories is a second class citizen and is othered in by the, not only the president, but the people that he's put in charge of the agencies of the federal government.
Speaker A:So the reality is being white, male and Christian isn't necessarily enough.
Speaker A:You need to be straight.
Speaker A:But that's not necessarily enough either because for these folks, they have a pretty defined idea of what's right and what's wrong.
Speaker A:And if you say anything that veers into the wrong territory, then you're in trouble.
Speaker A:Obviously if you're not a straight person, then you really have huge problems.
Speaker A:But you write about the othering.
Speaker A:Among the things that my father did was teach at Southern Seminary where Al Mohler is the President.
Speaker A:And I remember years ago, I won't say who it was, but he actually gave a talk denouncing two theologians, two evangelical theologians who were white and straight and Christian and still didn't meet his approval.
Speaker A:That's the problem.
Speaker A:And then of course, if you're not those things, you know, white, straight, male, then you're really in trouble.
Speaker C:And so now the government is being changed in ways that actively discriminates against people.
Speaker C:And our immigration policy is some would say really being a destructive force not only in the economy, but in the lives of people who are affected by this.
Speaker C:And so this is another element, it seems to me, to just try to close the borders, shut down the growth that we see in our population, in people of other indigenous people and other people who are not white, and that this is a big threat to them.
Speaker C:And therefore they want to take these extreme actions of deporting people that have been here for many, many years and are making positive contributions, paying taxes.
Speaker C:And of course the Congress has for years and years failed to address all the issues associated with the policies around immigration.
Speaker C:And we've just got this big mess in terms of how it all operates and the backlogs and all the different ins and outs.
Speaker C:But we've clearly reached a new level of concern and it's particularly being felt here in Southern California, where you have a lot of Latinos in the population.
Speaker C:And now the Supreme Court seems to have just authorized racial profiling as an acceptable way for ICE to operate, which is quite troubling.
Speaker C:This is, I think, one of the elements that is relevant to Christian nationalism, which is gaining and maintaining power.
Speaker C:And the presence of non white people seems to threaten the control and power of straight white men who are now running our government.
Speaker C:For the most part, it's people in that category.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:One of the things that's happened is that if you look back to the beginning of the 20th century, there's a Scopes trial, and William Jennings Bryan actually wins the trial, and then I think he dies of a heart attack the next day or two.
Speaker A:Evangelicals, well, they were called fundamentalists back then.
Speaker A:They kind of slipped away with their tail between their legs and they decided they wouldn't be involved in anything.
Speaker A:So there was this kind of movement among fundamentalists that, like, you don't associate with people who are not fundamentalists.
Speaker A:And then at a certain point, people like Jerry Falwell, Francis Schaeffer and other people came along and said, well, no, we Christians, we need to be influencing government.
Speaker A:Why should they get the power?
Speaker A:And so that was the move to get the power to.
Speaker A:Well, now it's turned to owning the libs.
Speaker A:There's different ways of putting this, but that was basically the root.
Speaker A:And Falwell, of course, tried to make the argument that the Moral Majority was really the majority, but I don't think that was the case then.
Speaker A:It's certainly not the case now.
Speaker C:So there is a big movement, I think of it as the homeschool movement, to train up future leaders to take over the world for Jesus and to control the government.
Speaker C:And I've talked with various folks that have been part of that and grew up in that and were being conditioned and trained as debaters and organizers and people very involved in politics to go and become interns in the White House and in Congress and to run for office.
Speaker C:And we're seeing a number of people in the Trump administration that have come out of that movement, the Christian nationalist movement, to infiltrate and begin controlling the government.
Speaker C:So I think that's a very real phenomena that people are maybe not aware of, of how extensive this is and how many people are involved in it and how big of an influence it is now playing out and having on what we're seeing in our government today.
Speaker A:And you're right, there are these institutions like Hillsdale College, Patrick Henry College that are grooming people specifically to go out and be ambassadors for Christian nationalism.
Speaker A:I will say this.
Speaker A:I think that at a place like Wheaton, the vast majority of people who were there would find Christian nationalism absolutely unacceptable.
Speaker A:So I don't think people who I worked with accepted Christian nationalism in the way that you'd find with these smaller schools.
Speaker C:So what are we going to do about this?
Speaker C:Do you have ideas?
Speaker C:What can people do who do not want to see this kind of takeover, who want to have a true democracy and believe in the rule of law?
Speaker C:What can we do?
Speaker A:Well, what I would do first is I would deny Christian nationalists the title of Christian.
Speaker A:That would be the first thing I'd do.
Speaker A:You might think, well, that's just a kind of intellectual point, but it's not an intellectual point.
Speaker A:If one can basically say what Christian nationalists teach is fundamentally at odds with what Jesus teaches, then I think you have a place to go, you have some kind of platform from which to move.
Speaker A:So that's one thing.
Speaker C:And they have taken it over.
Speaker C:They have taken over the name.
Speaker C:And so I don't know how we shake it loose to make it clear that that's not anywhere near a good description of what Christianity is and stands for.
Speaker C:And I think that's what's really upsetting and disappointing to many Christians is we feel like, you know, it's a perversion of what Jesus stood for and we're commanded to do and to love people and how love is supposed to be, you know, the dominating force in our lives, not power and violence and war and these other things that we see playing out.
Speaker C:Now.
Speaker C:I think it would be good if we could take the name back, but how are we going to make it clear to the people in charge that their direction is unacceptable?
Speaker A:You might not like my answer.
Speaker A:I think what is most fundamental about Jesus teaching is the following.
Speaker A:When he says turn the other cheek and these kinds of things, what he's saying is, in effect, don't play the game.
Speaker A:In other words, don't, you know, if someone hits you, don't hit them back.
Speaker A:You don't play the game.
Speaker A:And so the difficulty is how do you.
Speaker A:If you do not believe in name calling and you do not believe in villainizing people and you do not believe in othering people, how do you show that you love them?
Speaker A:And I think ultimately that is going to be the only way that this will be changed.
Speaker A:I mentioned to you earlier about this book, it's called Toxic Empathy.
Speaker A:Subtitle is How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion and the Authority basically argues that Christians need to stop having empathy because the progressives are exploiting it so that people like me, a gay person, would be seen as okay.
Speaker A:And I think actually what we need is empathy, and we need empathy on both sides.
Speaker A:So if we are the ones calling for some kind of reform, I think we are the ones who have to model that empathy.
Speaker C:I agree with that.
Speaker C:I think those of us who believe in the rule of law and want to see our democracy survive need to model good behavior and civic behavior and abhor violence and abhor political violence.
Speaker C:But I think there is a path to getting a foothold that would help us overturn this situation.
Speaker C: And that's the: Speaker C:We need to win at all levels with people who are committed to democracy and the rule of law.
Speaker C:And in the meantime, we need to get ourselves organized to show up and push back.
Speaker C:And I think Governor Pritzker gave us a good example recently of the kind of pushback that can be effective by speaking out directly and boldly, by saying, we're not going to tolerate this.
Speaker C:And, of course, he was not the only one.
Speaker C:I mean, people in the streets of Chicago were making it clear that they were not in favor of the military coming in to our cities, which is, of course, something that's been a long separation of what's an appropriate role for our military to play.
Speaker C:And it's not to be policing people and dealing with what should be the law enforcement responsibilities.
Speaker C:So that's one thing.
Speaker C:But we need many more people to join us in the protests that are organized.
Speaker C:And I know there are going to be more coming up in the near future.
Speaker C:We need to make as strong a showing as we can.
Speaker C:And it's important to reach out to friends and neighbors and bring people along and just make it clear that we don't agree with the direction things are going to and that there is a way to stand up, stand tall, push back, and still be civil and hold out, you know, hope for a better future.
Speaker C:And I'm hopeful that the Democrats will take seriously the need to clearly articulate that future and what we're trying to do when we get in charge, because we've not always done that adequately in the past.
Speaker C:I think that's an important part of it that's going to be a challenge because we are a big tent.
Speaker C:We got a lot of people with a lot of opinions, and, you know, it's hard to herd all these cats into one direction, but it's really important right now we got to get organized and we've got to get unified.
Speaker C:And the more that we can rally people to that, that's what we need to do.
Speaker C:I think I agree.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker C:Well, I think we will leave it there for today.
Speaker C:And this has been a good conversation about Christian nationalism and how it's affecting our country and where we're going.
Speaker C:And we'll continue that conversation in upcoming podcasts.
Speaker C:Getting out of this mess is going to take a movement and we're helping build that movement.
Speaker C:We hope you'll join us in that movement on United America Network.
Speaker B:You've been listening to Hot Spots with Kay Brown, where tough issues meet thoughtful conversation.
Speaker B:Stay engaged, stay inspired and join us again as we spotlight the struggles, solutions and stories that fuel resilience and change.
Speaker B:Until next time, keep your fire burning.
Speaker B:Hot Spots is a production of the United America Network and is available on most major podcast platforms as well as from UnitedAmericanetwork.com this is what democracy sounds and looks like.
