White Christian Nationalism is the New Hoax

Say goodbye to climate change... there's a new existential threat

Heidi Przybyla joined Politico in 2022 as, of all things, an investigative reporter. She has 16 years of experience covering Washington politics and she’s formerly written for USA Today and she served as an NBC news correspondent.

It would be hard to find anyone with less investigative acumen that Ms. Pryzbyla. In a February 29, 2024 article in Politico, she wrote that the Constitution protects both freedom of worship and separation of church and state. She then describes the tension this creates. She says that if a person’s religious values inform their political opinions, then those people must “expect journalistic scrutiny.”

It would be hard to get more things wrong in a few words that that.

A couple of months ago, Ms. Przybyla said that Christian Nationalists—a movement she claims exists and which is different than mere Christianity—believe that rights derive from God rather than the government and, as such, said Christian Nationalists pose a threat. So I don’t put words in her mouth, here is what she said:

“The thing that unites them as Christian nationalists is that they believe our rights as Americans and as all human beings do not come from any earthly authority. They don’t come from Congress, from the Supreme Court, they come from God.”

A good political investigative reporter with 16 years experience might have read the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence (something that used to be required of school children) which maintains that all humans are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

If you believe that your rights come from God, well, Przybyla says that makes you a Christian Nationalist because your rights come from Congress. And likely not just any Congress, a Democrat-run Congress.

The importance of the Declaration of Independence is that government functions in service to the people. The government doesn’t give us anything—the people fund the government and the people send representatives there to represent our interests. Those people sitting in Congress and other branches of government work for us. They are the hired help, not the leaders of this country. The government does not “grant” us rights—we have the rights. The government is the machinery—like the garbage truck that empties the dumpsters—to get done what we need done. If the government could give us the right, it could take it away.

(Granted, the government through the courts has the right to deprive us of many rights, but that requires due process. If the Congress gave us the right to liberty, it could deny us that without due process, even without any cause at all, as Whoopi Goldberg recently suggested when she argued that Biden might under certain conditions imprison all Republicans. To Goldberg, this would be a good thing.)

The separation of church and state is a phrase not found in the Constitution; Thomas Jefferson coined it in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Church in Connecticut. Ironically, Jefferson was addressing the concerns of that church about the possible imposition of a state religion. America had its roots deep in British culture and the British, even today, have a state church. It’s called, aptly, The Church of England. The Danbury Baptists were fearful that there might one day be a similar institution established in this country, and Jefferson wrote to convey to them the assurance that no such state church would be established and individual congregations were free to worship as they saw fit.

The separation of church and state was intended to protect the church from the state, not the state from the church.

Legal scholars believe that the first amendment or the “establishment clause” built the wall between church and state. But the First Amendment also protects citizens from compulsory worship in a certain church or in a certain way. Americans are free to worship as we see fit. Our choices in this arena “shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities” (1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, by Thomas Jefferson). You can worship any way you wish or not at all.

Jefferson was not banning religion from the public square; he was saying that people, even politicians, had the right to practice their religion in public, if they wanted. Some people worship with vigorous dancing and gestures; some worship quietly to somber organ music; some worship with no music. Some people dress in particular ways to observe religious requirements. All of these things are allowed; the state has no say.

Religious freedom is not some dusty old political thing. Even in our modern and enlightened era, it does not exist in certain countries. There are parts of the world where you can establish a Christian church but only under government supervision (China) or where you cannot have a Christian church at all (North Korea, Saudi Arabia). In the nation of Mauritania, every person is born a Muslim and religious conversion is illegal. Christians are routinely imprisoned in Iran and Iraq. It is illegal to pass out a Bible to a citizen of Saudi Arabia. Although non-Muslims may become naturalized citizens of Saudi Arabia, they must convert to Islam to obtain citizenship.  The United States makes no such religious demands on naturalized citizens.

The U.S. government can make reference to religion and so can citizens in public spaces. The Establishment Clause merely holds that the government cannot favor one religion over another. If we allow a Christian prayer, we must be willing if the request arises to accommodate a Muslim prayer. (That does not mean we must all pray the Muslim prayer, it means that such a prayer would be permitted the same was as a Christian prayer would be permitted.) A city may allow a Christmas festival, but if the request arises, it must also accommodate a Jewish holiday, for example, Chanukah.

In 2014, SCOTUS said that the government could not “coerce its citizens to support or participate in any religion or its exercise.” The court case is Town of Green vs. Galloway. That means if Congress opens with a prayer, members are not required to join in although a certain measure of respectful decorum is appreciated and civilized. In the United States, we sometimes may allow a Hindu prayer to take place at an official meeting, but we do not coerce anyone to becoming a Hindu.

Freedom of religion means the freedom to exercise a religion in public and also the freedom to not exercise a religion in public.

Christian Nationalism, like climate change and Russian collusion, is a made-up narrative designed to scare liberals and punish Conservatives. There is no Church of Christian Nationalism. You can’t go to Amazon and pick up the Christian Nationalist Bible or the Christian National Articles of Faith. I have never met a clergyperson from the church of Christian Nationalism. In fact, I would be willing to bet I know about 10 times as many Christians as Heidi Przybyla knows—and the only person I’ve heard talking about Christian Nationalism are Heidi Przybyla and other anti-church liberals.

And according to Wikipedia, Christian Nationalism is a global movement. This is ironic, considering it’s nationalistic. How can a nationalist movement be global? Oh well, no one ever said Democrats were smart.

What this worldwide band of Christian Nationalists is accused of doing is bringing their religion into public life—even politics. For instance, Heidi Przybyla says that making Christmas a federal holiday is an act of Christian Nationalism. Allowing a Christian prayer before Congress is Christian Nationalism.

She is quite mistaken.

Now this is where things get absurd. (If you ever want to know what the alphabet agencies want you to think … read Wikipedia. They write it.) One of the leaders of Christian Nationalism is Vladimir Putin. That’s hysterical. Vladmir Putin is apparently leading the religious movement to make America a Christian nation. First of all, Christianity as practiced in Russia is Eastern Orthodox, a different type than what is practiced in the United States. Second, Vladimir is Russian.

However, Wikipedia tells us that Russian President Vladmir Putin is a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church and because he is a supporter of the church and has close contacts with certain church authorities, he is a Christian Nationalist supporting Evangelical Christianity in America. Furthermore, in Russia, there is allegedly a Christian Nationalist group affiliated with Neo-Nazis. This is hard to believe since no nation is more anti-Nazi than Russia.

But Heidi Przybyla tells us Christian Nationalism is a globalist nationalist movement. The Scottish Family Party in the United Kingdom has been smeared as being Christian Nationalist because they are anti-pride and promote family values. What fiends. Certain political agendas, quite apart from religion, can make you a Christian Nationalist. This almost makes me wonder if the whole LGBTQ alphabet society was created to reverse-engineer Christian Nationalism out of it. Christian Nationalists in America stand for Constitutional values (freedom of speech, right to bear arms, due process) and this is a nice backdoor way to sully those principles.

Christian Nationalism is not entirely new; it has been mentioned as a talking point way back during World War II. In 1942 in South Africa, the former Prime Minister B. J. Vorster said that he favored Christian Nationalism which was an ally of National Socialism. He linked Nazis and Christians. Vorster, who died in 1983, promoted apartheid as well, so you can see that Christian Nationalism must also be aligned with racism.

CNN has coined the phrase “White Christian Nationalism” which is, at least in February of 2024, regarded as “the most serious threat” to democracy that exists. Here I was worried about World War III, Houthi pirates in the Red Sea, the depletion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Iran building a nuclear bomb to drop on Israel, rampant crime, and crushing inflation! The real danger is White Christian Nationalism.

Makes you wonder if these alleged reporters even listen to themselves.

CNN reports that White Christian Nationalism twists Biblical language to “justify violence, sexism, and hostility toward people of color.” They make this sweeping and terrible statement with no evidence or references to why they would say that. Further, CNN declares flatly that “whiteness is the default setting for evangelical Christianity.” That’s amazing. I go to a church that is 90% Hispanic and Evangelical. Are we White Christian Nationalists?

CNN is so racist it cannot conceive of any person being an Evangelical Christian other than a white person.

CNN goes on to state that two-thirds of the people who support Christian Nationalism are white Evangelicals. Do they just make up these statistics? They claim that they got this statistic from Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) which claims, amusingly, to be nonpartisan. It also claims January 6 was an insurrection, which is odd, since this claims to be a religious and not political organization. To get a glimpse into how unbiased the PRRI is, the survey the ran was entitled, “Understanding the Threat of Christian Nationalism to American Democracy and Culture.” You couldn’t fit more lefty buzzwords into a survey title if you tried. Despite tying it to whiteness, the survey has to admit that 52% of “other Protestants of color” might count as either sympathizers or adherent to White Christian Nationalism, so it isn’t exactly an exclusively white club, except that they call it White Christian Nationalism.

And, in another amusing finding, the PRRI notes from its survey that 61% of Jewish Americans are not Christian Nationalists. I am surprised it’s not higher.

In one finding that seemed to befuddle the survey takers, those who scored high on White Christian Nationalistic ideas (the United States is a Christian nation, laws should be based on Christian values, being Christian is important to Americans, and so on) were more likely to be active in their churches. This finding is surprising? The PRRI seemed to think White Christian Nationalist would be Christians in name only. In fact, the PRRI observed that if people wouldn’t go to church, Christian Nationalism would die out.

Hmm, are you sensing they want to ban churches? (Christian Nationalism is the greatest threat to our country and it can be stamped out if we just shut down the churches…)

In this survey, the PRRI presents the five correlates of Christian Nationalism:

• White supremacy has been renamed “Anti-Black Racism.”  So it’s White Christian Nationalism but we’re supposed to think of it as Anti-Black Christian Nationalism. That’s weird, since it’s a global movement and many countries on earth, particularly in Africa, are majority Black. Are they practicing Anti-Black Christian Nationalism in Nigeria? However, these liberals define anti-Black racists as anyone who says that anti-Black racism is not a problem in modern society.  In other words, if you don’t agree that anti-Black racism is a problem, presto! you’re a white supremacist. They may be surprised to learn that many parts of the world, such as Africa and South America, are seeing rapidly increasing numbers of churches and Christian converts. By 2030, China will have the most Christians in one nation on earth. So does this mean that China is white supremacist and anti-Black? Those two races are not heavily represented in their nation.

• Anti-immigrant. This is defined in part by those who believe in “replacement theory.” Replacement theory is not exactly the same thing as anti-immigrant sentiment. Replacement theory is the idea that Democrats are using the border crisis to “import” voters that will boost census numbers (more people in Blue districts so Blue states get more people in the House of Representatives) and also increase the number of people who may vote for Democrats.

• Antisemitic. The survey determined if White Christian Nationalists were antisemitic by from one survey question, namely one that asked whether Jewish people hold too many positions of power. This survey did not ask about the recent Middle East conflict, Palestine, Jewish practices, Israeli politics, or the two-state solution. Nor did it ask about Jewish beliefs. Jewish people make up about 2% of the American population but hold 15 of the highest-level Cabinet positions in the Biden administration. It’s the largest group represented in Biden’s Cabinet. That’s just a fact… but does it make me antisemitic if I know that? Biden’s Cabinet also has 10 Catholics in high-level positions.

• Anti-Muslim. The survey established this by asking if the United State should prevent people from Muslim-majority nations from coming to the United States and then said those who agreed with White Christian Nationalists and this proved their anti-Muslim attitudes.

• Patriarchal. This was ascertained by asking if the man was the head of the family. Answer yes and, congratulations, you’re a patriarch. Plus, 60% of White Christian Nationalists think that our society has become too feminized. (If you don’t like the photo below, you’re probably a Christian Nationalist.)

Christian Nationalists are also authoritarian (that’s because when asked if we should follow civil authorities such as police, most Christian Nationalists said yes). By the way, Robert P. Jones, the head of PRRI, has said that the “more racist attitudes a person holds, the more likely he or she is to identify as a White Christian.” This is interesting considering that he is saying your opinions can change your race. I’ve met some Asians in my day who are very racist. Are they now white? Jones says the more racist attitudes you hold, the whiter you get.

Do these people listen to what they’re saying?

Jones of the PRRI also points out that if you wanted to recruit White Supremacists to join a militant organization, you’d do better to hang out “in the parking lot of an average white Christian Church—evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, or Catholic” than approaching people at, say, the local coffee shop or shooting range.

Now just in case you are puzzled by the term “Evangelical,” it is a movement among various Protestant denominations that emphasizes Evangelism (sharing the Good News) and being born again or having had a conversion experience. Many church denominations and Christians proudly identify as “Evangelical” which is not a pejorative term in Christian or other religious circles, despite what liberals want to make it.

Evangelicals talk openly about Jesus, share the good news, and often have what they term a “personal relationship” with Jesus. Catholics are generally not considered Evangelical and the Protestants who do not believe in being born again or sharing their faith are often called “mainline” Protestant churches. Some mainline churches endorse extremely liberal social and political views, such as being pro-choice and pro-pride; these churches do not self-identify as Evangelical because they consider the term Evangelical to be equivalent to “Neanderthal terroristic Trump supporter.” So within the church itself is a radical split. It’s between those who go to church for political reasons versus those who go to church for spiritual reasons.

Those are not the same thing.

In the United States, Wikipedia tells us that Republicans who identify as either Evangelical and/or “born-again believers” are the base of support for Christian Nationalism, with older people more like to be Christian Nationalists than younger people.

And what mainstream media survey or news report would be complete without mentioning Donald Trump? Yes, the PRRI survey found that 71% of Christian Nationalists have a favorable impression of Trump while only 17% of Christian Nationalists hold a positive view of Biden.

Finally, we are told by PRRI that in the January 6 event at the Capitol, Christian Nationalism fused with White Christian identity politics and extremist ideologies. The PRRI survey states without examples or foundation that “Christian Nationalist symbols were proudly on display at the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.” Like what? An American flag? A cross? What are the symbols of Christian Nationalism? It would be helpful if they had examples rather than just rhetoric.

The point is that Christianity is a big religion. There are well over 2 billion Christians walking the earth right now—it’s the largest religion on earth. In the United States, 230 million of our 330 million citizens claim Christianity as their religion. Now we all know that any group of 2 billion or even 230 million people is not going to be ideologically homogeneous. There are different denominations and even within denominations, different practices. There are many Christmas-and-Easter Christians and those who claim Christianity who do not practice at all, not even on Easter. However, within this conglomeration of people, I do not know of one single Christian Nationalist.

So why is our government sounding the alarm that Christian Nationalism is the greatest threat to our country?

Christians in the United States are starting to assert themselves. Some things going on in this country defy Christian values, and Christians have taken to speaking up or even showing up to protest. Despite arrests and harsh jail terms, Christians still show up to pray at abortion clinics. Christians are letting their faith influence their political ideology, which is not only allowed in the United States, it’s desirable. Christians are trying to remove highly sexual books from public school libraries. Christians also object to taxpayer funding of Drag Queen Story Hour at the local library. Christians are challenging transsexual surgeries for minors or removing minors from the custody of parents who oppose transitioning. Politics should be downstream of religious affiliation—not the other way around.

Christians are starting to make themselves noticed. No longer content to be pushed into the background and shamed into silence, Christians are speaking up, praying up, and showing up. Go on social media—a lot of people self-identify as Christians and some of them even post Bible verses.

This new war cry raging against White Christian Nationalism and Politico’s attempts to affiliate it with Putin, Russia, and the Nazis tells me that some liberals are getting very nervous.

But why should Politico and our government be worried? Well, one reason is that Christianity teaches fundamental principles and absolute truth; our current political narrative is based on relative (not absolute) truths and plenty of out-and-out lies. Christianity also teaches that there is an authority greater than Congress, greater than SCOTUS, even greater than the White House. In other words, if what Biden says differs from what Jesus says, there are certain people who think Jesus has more authority.

Christianity changes people. It made pompous Saul into the gentle and long-suffering Apostle Paul. It makes people take a long view of history instead of an immediate one. When they are well grounded, Christians are not malleable by government forces or liberal media. Paul told us that government exists to keep us safe and keep our communities functional (Letter to the Romans) but beyond that, government is not to dictate how we worship. And worship changes hearts and minds, which is exactly what mainstream media outlets like Politico fear most.

If you are Christian, take heart. This means we’re winning. And, yes, in the Christian world, winning often means losing. As we lose our worldly safety and reputations, we are gaining our eternal strength and spiritual integrity.

We should also be grateful that we live in a profoundly ignorant nation. Half of all American adults (54%) have never heard anything about White Christian Nationalism and only 5% have heard “a great deal” about it. And let’s let a few facts intrude:

• About a third of all American Evangelicals (the alleged base of White Christian Nationalism) is nonwhite. This seems ironic. Th

• Black Christians are much more likely to call themselves Evangelical Christians than White Christians, so Black Christians are a more significant part of White Christian Nationalism than whites.

• In the US, the fastest-growing Evangelical Church growth is Latinos. That’s true in South and Central America as well.

• Many of our elite universities have Evangelical student groups and 80% of their membership is Asian.

They’re scared of us. There is really no reason to be scared of us, we’re not much. But the God we serve ought to scare them! To quote Psalms, “Let God arise and His enemies be scattered!”