S&P's Contributing Editor, Jon M. Sweeney, had an “Off the Page" conversation with author Amanda Tyler about “How to End Christian Nationalism" on October 31, 2024. Watch the video below.
This book is timely, with the U.S. presidential election in its final weeks. Support for Donald Trump has come from many quarters, including Christian nationalists. Most of us didn’t know, let alone use, that phrase until a few years ago.
I do wonder why the word “white” isn’t in the title prefacing “Christian Nationalists,” and I’ll ask author Amanda Tyler about that when we interview her next week — October 31, 1pm Eastern time, on Zoom at SpiritualityandPractice.com/OffthePageWebinar. She makes it fairly clear that this is a problem of white Christians specifically.
A lawyer and a Baptist, Tyler has been alarmed by this trend for much longer than Trump has been involved in national politics. After graduating Georgetown, she went to law school in Austin, Texas followed by work in civil litigation and then, in 2009, joined the staff of Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat representing Texas’ 37th congressional district. She worked for Doggett for eight years, both in Austin and then as his legal counsel for the Ways and Means Committee in Washington. In the book’s introduction, Tyler remembers: “One hot Saturday morning in August, I arrived early at a grocery store to set up for the congressman’s 'neighborhood office hours.' An angry mob soon descended on the parking lot, shouting down the event and waving hateful signs, including one with Rep. Doggett’s name on a tombstone and another where his eyes had been altered to appear demonic. At future events, I noticed that many of the same activists would show up brandishing assault-style rifles. Looking back, I see those intimidation tactics as a foreshadowing of what was to come, years later.”
In 2016, Tyler went to work for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, in D.C., where she is now executive director. The BJC is made up of attorneys, Capitol Hill insiders, ministers, mobilizers, and scholars who file briefs in Supreme Court cases, advocate regarding legislation, testify in Congress, and unite with people of other faiths to ensure that Americans will always have the right to follow their spiritual beliefs. Tyler notes: “Our advocacy is often for those whose beliefs differ from our own because Christians hold and have always held power in the United States.”
This is one tent-pole for understanding Christian nationalism: the mistaken notion that Christians and Christianity are “under siege.” The opposite has always been the case.
Tyler’s first month on the job at the BJC was Trump’s first month as President, January 2017, when he instituted a travel ban on Muslims entering the U.S., and then his statement at the National Prayer Breakfast (a partisan event) that he would “destroy” the Johnson Amendment, the law preventing nonprofit organizations from engaging in directly supporting candidates running for public office. Tyler shows how these and other acts of the Trump presidency (including January 6th), plus events since that time, are part of a growing movement of Christian nationalism.
“Christian nationalism as an ideology can be embraced, in varying degrees, by anyone. And people who embrace Christian nationalism are wielding immense power,” she writes. And she quotes many leaders in the United States today who see no problem advocating for Christian nationalism in its precepts or even by its name.
Tyler defines it: “Christian nationalism is a political ideology and cultural framework that seeks to fuse American and Christian identities. It suggests that 'real' Americans are Christians and that 'true' Christians hold a particular set of political beliefs. It seeks to create a society in which only this narrow subset of Americans is privileged by law and in societal practice.”
The book is organized into eight chapters, each offering a step toward addressing and dismantling Christian nationalism. These include renewing commitments to the separation of Church and State and protecting religious freedom in public schools.
Tyler is an expert in breaking down this ideology and exposing it for what it is: a heresy within Christianity and an ongoing threat to American democracy and freedom. Her book is essential.
