A team of scholars, faith leaders and advocates unveiled an exhaustive new report Wednesday (Feb. 9) that documents in painstaking detail the role Christian nationalism played in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and calling it an unsettling preview of things to come.
Christian nationalism was used to “bolster, justify and intensify the January 6 attack on the Capitol,” said Amanda Tyler, head of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, which sponsored the report along with the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Tyler’s group is behind an initiative called Christians Against Christian Nationalism.
The organizations touted the report as “the most comprehensive account to date of Christian nationalism and its role in the January 6 insurrection,” compiled using “videos, statements, and images from the attack and its precursor events.”
An expert analysis of the coup attempt
Katherine Stewart, author of the 2019 book, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism (chapter review here), wrote this:
Because Christian nationalism is identified (or, more accurately, because it identifies itself) with a religion, the movement is often understood as a set of religious and/or theological positions that are then assumed to lead in a deductive way to a certain set of cultural and policy preferences, and from there to a certain kind of politics. But Christian nationalism is, first and foremost, a political movement. Its principal goal, and the goal of its most active leaders, is power. Its leadership looks forward to the day when they can rely on government for three things: power and influence for themselves and their political allies; a steady stream of taxpayer funding for their initiatives; and policies that favor “approved” religious and political viewpoints.The strength of the movement is in its dense organizational infrastructure: a closely interconnected network of right-wing policy groups, legal advocacy organizations, legislative initiatives, sophisticated data operations, networking groups, leadership training initiatives, and media and messaging platforms, all working together for common political aims. Its leadership cadre includes a number of personally associated activists and politicians, some of them working through multiple organizations. It derives much of its power and direction from an informal club of funders, a number of them belonging to extended, hyper-wealthy families.At the conferences and presentations I have reported on over the past year, audiences were told, heatedly and repeatedly, that America is and always has been a Christian nation, that the Bible is on the verge of being outlawed, and that the 2020 election was corrupt. This is part of the reason why the hold of Mr. Trump on this wing of the Republican Party has been so hard to break: because Christian nationalist gatherings generally don’t involve open debates about facts or policy, but rather displays of fidelity to a message and loyalty to the leaders who have managed to identify themselves with that message.Today, many of the movement’s most influential organizations have embraced the cause of “election integrity” as a fairly transparent means of undercutting faith in elections as a cornerstone of our democracy.
The rank and file come to the movement with a wide variety of backgrounds, ideas, and interests, and a very substantial number do not explicitly support anything like a “theocracy.” Many would be unhappy to learn all of the details about what their leaders are proposing. Much of this group votes identity, not policy. When they vote for the candidates who promise to end abortion or defend the traditional family or re-unite church and state, they aren’t explicitly aiming for major fundamental changes in the way American government is organized; they are making a statement about who they are, what they value in themselves, and perhaps what they fear in other people.
They may also be drawn to the movement’s promise of certainty in an uncertain world. Against a backdrop of escalating economic inequality, deindustrialization, rapid technological change, and climate instability, many people, on all points of the economic spectrum, feel that the world has entered a state of disorder. The movement gives them confidence, an identity, and the feeling that their position in the world is safe. (emphasis added)
That last paragraph makes an important point. There is a shocking disconnect between what is in the minds of the CN leadership compared to the rank and file. For the rank and file, the CN movement is firmly grounded in lies and deceit. The elites know what they are doing and what they want, i.e., wealth, power and anti-democratic theocratic autocracy. By contrast, the rank and file believe they are defending democracy, and more or less, the status quo.
Although it may appear counter intuitive and thus be hard to grasp, it is critical to understand that when people vote identity, not policy, some or most of them are supporting something they would strongly oppose if they understood what policies their identity actually stands for. The leadership knows exactly what it is doing, but most of the rank and file probably does not.
One fascinating finding in almost all of these [social science] studies, though, is that religious practice and Christian nationalism are not one and the same. Pointing out the negative influence of Christian nationalism is not to be equated with decrying religious practice or Christianity, writ large. In fact, once researchers account for the influence of Christian nationalism and hold it constant, the influence of religious practice works in the exact opposite direction of Christian nationalism.
Current research indicates that, among other beliefs, CN adherents generally (i) oppose federal gun control restrictions because the Second Amendment is divinely inspired, (ii) hold anti-vaccine attitudes, (iii) distrust science and scientists, (iv) are scientifically illiterate toward religiously contested scientific claims, (v) support Trump and Trumpism in the last two national elections, (vi) endorse traditional gender roles (men lead and women follow), and (vii) hold anti-democratic attitudes favoring restricting the vote and denying the existence of voter suppression.
There is a major structural and propaganda network of churches and radical right disinformation sources, e.g., Fox News, where the CN leadership pushes disinformation to deceive and motivate the rank and file. Interestingly people who are more active in church activities are less inclined to hold core CN beliefs. In other words, politically active CNs tend to claim to be following Christian teachings but do not engage in Christian practices as much as more active Christians. In a sense, they can be seen as faux Christians who are deluded by CN movement propaganda that elites use to trap and manipulate them into supporting a spiritual war against the forces of evil such as church-state separation, secularism including secular public education and same-sex marriage.
The report goes into details of events that led up to the 1/6 coup attempt. Most of it is sordid and frightening. The grip that CN leaders' lies and crackpottery exert their have on millions of people is astonishing.
A treasonous CN crackpot, later arrested
Mug shot of another CN traitor arrested
after the insurrection
“Peaceable transitions of power have marked our Republic since the beginning. It is part of honoring and submitting to God’s ordained leaders whether they were our choice or not. We need you, @POTUS to condemn this mob. Let’s move forward together. Praying for safety.” -- Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear, via Twitter
“This mob attack on our Capitol and our Constitution is immoral, unjust, dangerous, and inexcusable. What has happened to our country is tragic, and could have been avoided. … President @realDonaldTrump, you have a moral responsibility to call on these mobs to stop this dangerous and anti-constitutional anarchy. Please do so.” -- Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore, via Twitter“Armed breaching of capitol security behind a confederate flag is anarchy, unAmerican, criminal treason and domestic terrorism. President Trump must clearly tell his supporters ‘We lost. Go home now.’ ” -- California megachurch pastor Rick Warren, via Twitter“I don’t know the Jesus some have paraded and waved around in the middle of this treachery today. They may be acting in the name of some other Jesus but that’s not Jesus of the Gospels.” -- Bible teacher Beth Moore, via Twitter
A few critics called CN out by name:
“The violence and sedition unfolding at the Capitol today — both inside and outside the building — are an unprecedented, anti-American, and anti-Christian attack on our democracy and on our people, one fueled by white supremacy, Christian nationalism, and the actions of self-serving Republican politicians.” -- Rev. Nathan Empsall, campaigns director, Faithful America
But for every real Christian who openly criticized the treason and violence, there were probably a million or two who were complicit by silence, including most Republicans in congress.
The report includes several hundred citations and live links to primary information sources, making the fact assertions in it easy to check.
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