The Sean McDowell Show - Christian Nationalism: A Threat to America?

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

Is Christian Nationalism an existential threat to America? Or is it a tactic to marginalize conservative voices today in the public arena? In this episode, I am joined by two scholars (Mark David Hall and Michael W. Austin) to discuss and debate the nature of Christian nationalism, the church and how Christians should bring their faith into the political realm. READ: Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism: Why Christian Nationalism Is Not an Existential Threat to America or the Church by Mark David Hall (https://amzn.to/3UrlCra) READ: American Christian Nationalism: Neither American nor Christian Paperback by Michael W. Austin (https://amzn.to/3YI3tYs) WATCH: Is Christian Nationalism Dangerous? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2mSsFQRUXs) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Is Christian nationalism an existential threat to America and the church? Or is it a contrived movement meant to cast aspersions on conservative Christians who bring their faith into the public square? Or is there maybe some truth in both? Our two guests today, Mark David Hall and Michael Austin, have each written recent, excellent books about Christian nationalism, and they're here to discuss it. Fellas, thanks for coming on. Thank you. Well, let's start with just each of your stories. I know every time I write a book, there's a story and a motivation I have to do it. So Mark, let me start with you.

Your book is called Who's Afraid of Christian Nationalism, which is an interesting title. Why did you commit to writing that book now? So I tell the story in the beginning of the book. On January 6, 2021, I'm flying across the country and I land in Dallas. And I get an email from a reporter asking me to comment on the Christian symbols among the Capitol Hill rioters. And this was the first I had heard of it. And so in waiting 20 minutes for her to send me some of these symbols, I scrolled through all the video footage I could find. And I saw a sea of American flags, a sea of Trump flags, a sea of MAGA hats, no Christian symbols. Eventually, 20 minutes later, she sends me a few screenshots. One had a woman with a handmade sign that said something like God, glory and guns.

But she was standing by the Washington Monument, which is 1.5 miles from the U.S. Capitol building. There was a picture of the riot with someone with a Pine State flag, but that's a Revolutionary Era war flag. So you could imagine some misbegotten patriot bringing that to the Capitol thinking he was engaged in the Second American Revolution. And then this crazy-looking goth guy holding a copy of a Bible. And so I cautioned this reporter, you might want to be careful with this notion that there's a lot of Christian symbols among rioters. She completely ignored my cautious caution,

came out with this story the next day, Christian nationalists have attacked the US Capitol building. You saw similar stories in the New York Times and elsewhere. And so this really piqued my interest. I went out and read every book I could find on American Christian nationalism, and I was just shocked at how bad almost all of them were. And so that encouraged me to write a response to the very bad literature, but also to address a handful of Christians that were actually claiming to be Christian nationalists and who are advocating for it. That's really helpful. Clearly, this has become such a part of the national conversation. As you both point out in different ways, there's massive misunderstanding over what it is, how prevalent it is. But before we get to that, Mike, you were on the show three or four

years ago talking about a whole different topic. So when you wrote this, it piqued my interest, but your book is called American Christian Nationalism, Neither American Nor Christian. Why'd you write this book now? Yeah, for me, it was, I didn't want to write the book. I mean, honestly, you know, you know, I write about some controversial things, but my heart of hearts is right about spiritual formation and character growth and how Christian philosophy can help us with that. But these things are related to spiritual formation. And so for me, it was, I loved some of the books. I agree with Mark. Some of the books written on this aren't good. One that I really enjoyed was Paul Miller's The Religion of American Greatness. I thought that,

you know, he's conservative, evangelical, Christian, Republican, worked for Bush. I mean, all the sort of, and I thought that was a really excellent book, but most people aren't going to read 250 pages of an IVP academic book. I just looked around. There's nothing short, concise, because I had people. I'd be on podcasts talking about something else, and they'd say, well, maybe I'm a nationalist or a patriot. They don't even know basic differences like that because they just don't. It's not easily accessible. You can look up five different definitions at five websites. And so I wanted to give, here's a clear thing about what this is, kind of using the words of Christian nationalists themselves. So not strawmanning, but here's what they say they believe and what they

want to do. And then just trying to critique it from American point of view and a Christian point of view. And yeah, so I was motivated. I thought it would be helpful for people. And I kind of put myself under the gun, so to speak, speaking of the last time I was on your show, to get this done in time to get out before the election. Not because I think it's going to change it, but I wanted or even wanted to change the outcome, but more that I wanted people to like, what's a good quick resource that we can work through this as we, if people who are just thinking about Christianity and politics and what, how we engage. I had Paul Miller on having a discussion slash soft debate with our arena about this when Paul Miller's book came out. So if others want another conversation on this, I'll link below, but let me, I know we all hate labels for different reasons, but I want

people to understand that two of you are coming from at least slightly different differences, maybe theologically and or politically. My sense of reading your books, and I'll need to comment on this and clarify, is that Mike, you might be a little center left and Mark, you might be a little center right. Mark, is that fair? And then I'll come to you, Mike. Yeah, I think so, because left and right have become so corrupted in our current political environment. I'd prefer to call myself a liberty friendly Burkean conservative. And I really dislike the direction the Republican Party has gone over the last eight years or so. But, yeah, it's probably accurate to say I'm right of center. Fair enough, Mike. Yeah, probably so overall. I'm pro-life, but I have different views that would tend left about immigration and other

things. And I would see myself, I mean, I do moral philosophy, but broadly as a classic liberal, meaning let's just everybody bring our views to the table, hash it out, try to persuade each other, build a consensus, and try to govern. Excellent. Now, right now, people want me to weigh in and go, wait, immigration, hang on, Trump, that is a separate conversation. Just pointing out that you have a lot in common and some differences, even though you're coming at this with different training and with a little bit of maybe a different focus. That's the only reason I draw that out.

Now, I think it'd be a helpful place, again, both of you start in your books with defining Christian nationalism. Now, I'm going to come to you, Mark, to back this up. But before we do, I just want to pull really quickly from a New York Times article that was on this last year by Douthit. And what Douthit did is this is a great piece. He said four ways of looking at Christian nationalism. And he said one way is the belief that America should unite religion and politics in the same manner as the tribes of Israel and Leviticus and Deuteronomy or Puritan New England.

That's one. Second, the belief that America is a chosen nation commissioned by God to bring out some form of radical transformation in the world. So these first two definitions have some supernatural element or calling, even though they flesh that out differently. Third definition, Douthat says, is any, oh, I'm sorry, I skipped one. He said the belief that American ideals make the most sense in light of Christianity. So we should desire America to be more Christian than less Christian. So now we've shifted to Christian ideas that frame to maybe our constitution, declaration of independence, but there's nothing supernatural, so to speak, about America. And then the last one,

which kind of made me chuckle, and we'll get to this. He says, any kind of Christian politics that liberals find disagreeable or distasteful. That was just funny because it gets to an issue we're going to talk about today. But part of the point is, is it's a word like evolution. People mean so many different things by it. So you both wrote a book on this. Mark, give us the best, I don't know if I'd say concise understanding, if that's possible, without leaving out important details of what we even mean by Christian nationalism. Since I'm an academic, I'm not going to answer your question directly. Prior to 2006, almost literally no one in the United States of America is using the label or the phrase Christian nationalist. No one's saying I am a Christian nationalist. No one's saying I am a

Christian nationalism. It's a good thing. Beginning in 2006, you see a steady stream of books by polemical critics, by journalists, by disgruntled evangelicals, by people from the Freedom from Religion Foundation. And they paint a picture of Christian nationalism, which involves Christians who want to take over America for Christ and literally oppress everyone except for white Christian males. And so this is a horrible, scary, toxic thing. And we should be very, very afraid. And so this is, I think, the most common definition. I've probably read 30 books on American Christian nationalism. Almost all of them are written by these polemical critics, and they tell the same sort of story. And this literature is ridiculous, and we can go into it if you want. There are another set of

books that I would attribute to the academic critics, people like Paul Miller, who was mentioned earlier, and his is one of the few books I like, although I still am critical of it in my book review of it. But then Whitehead and Perry and people like this that are far more sensible, and yet they lean too much in the direction of these polemical critics. So for instance, the subtitle of my book, Why Christian Nationalism is Not an Existential Threat to America or the Church, that is taken directly from Andrew Whitehead, who has said this, Christian nationalism is this horrible, scary threat, not only to America's experiment in constitutional self-government, but to the Christian church itself. And people like Gorski and Jamar Tisby and others echo this.

And so I think both the polemical critics and the academic critics paint this picture of this horrific threat to America that's bound up with racism, sexism, militarism, just every bad ism that you can find. The academic literature is slightly more responsible. And I would put Paul Miller's book and I'd put Mike's book in a slightly different category here or a different category altogether. I eventually get to my own definition of Christian nationalism, which is far less toxic than what these critics talk about. But why don't I turn it over to Mike and I'd love to hear what he thinks about this. Yeah. So for me, you know, philosophers want precise definitions. You could spend my whole book doing that, but so I'm not writing this book for other philosophers so that,

you know, someone might actually read it and get something out of it. Right. Normal people. And I mean, normal as a compliment. Um, so for me, I think readings, some of the books and the other online or other kinds of writings that not all. So Christian nationalists, they tend to think of the U.S. being founded as a Christian nation. You can believe that and not be a Christian nationalist, but that's one sort of thing that most of them would say. There's a historical kind of connection between what they want and the history of our country. They believe that the U.S. government should promote a particular kind of Christian culture, and it tends to be what Miller called Anglo-Protestant culture. So sort of christian culture and it tends to be what miller called anglo-protestant culture

so sort of you know white protestant culture of the 50s maybe as a way to think about it or conservative conservative white evangelicalism today that you kind of think of politically and theologically although not all of that it's a subset of that um the things that that you should seek power or not you that well you and i as christians we should seek power, or not you, well, you and I as Christians, we should seek power, political and cultural power in order to exercise dominion over America. So that comes up in a lot of the writings, that biblical phrase dominion. We should prioritize American interests over the interests of other nations in an extreme sense, I think I would say. And then what really concerns me in the spiritual sense is a fusing or a fusion of our American identity and Christian identity. So a nationalist. So I think we would say we're Christians first and then citizens of our nation second.

And if our faith should inform how we live as citizens, for sure. But often those things those things seem to be equal or sometimes the Americanism trumps the Christian faith. So broadly speaking, I think most people that are Christian nationalists would hold to most of those tenets would be my argument. Let me recite these five really quickly, and then Mark, tell us what you agree with, if we can kind of have a common definition here and keep moving. You said that America was founded as a Christian nation. We haven't defined that yet, but that's a piece of it. That the government should in some way favor or promote Christianity. Third, that Christians should seek power within the government to kind of favor Christianity. A third, that we should favor American interests overseas because of this and here, and then there's some kind of fusion of our Americanism and the Christian faith. Those,

to greater and lesser degrees, are what we mean by Christian nationalism. Mark, how do you make, give us your thoughts on that. So that comes pretty close to my own definition of Christian nationalism, which I lay out. I think it's in Chapter 4. I define Christian nationalism as a view that America was founded as a Christian nation and that Christianity should be favored by governments. And I would use governments because we're talking about both the national government, but also state governments or perhaps county or town governments.

Christianity should be favored above other religions. And so this would include things like having Congress formally declare America to be a Christian nation. About 18% of Americans would have Congress do that. The view that the Constitution was divinely inspired by God. Again, about 20% of Americans embrace this view. And also that maybe we need to get public school teachers leading children in Christian prayers, which is actually far beyond what we did in the 1950s because those were generic prayers. But about 28% of Americans say, yeah, we need to get Christian prayers into the public schools. So you average these together, you get about 21% of Americans who hold these views and would like to implement some policies based on them.

Now, I would suggest that I disagree with all these things, incidentally, and we can get into distinctions between what it means to have a Christian founding and America to be founded as a Christian nation. But basically, I think all of these make almost no difference for law and public policy. If Congress were to declare America formally to be a Christian nation, that would be very off-putting to the 36 percent of Americans who don't identify as Christians. But I'm not sure anything really bad would follow from that. Every state constitution currently recognizes a deity. And in the context in which they're written, that clearly is a Christian God. And I'm not sure anyone's been hurt by those constitutional provisions. Now, I still oppose even this benign form of Christian nationalism.

And I give all sorts of reasons, prudential, constitutional, biblical and theological reasons. So I don't want anyone to think I like that. But I hope it's clear it's not an existential threat to our constitutional order. And I can assure people who are worried the Christian church will survive, even the threat of Christian nationalism. Well, maybe let's shift to this right now, given that you ended by saying it's not an existential threat. Let's talk about how maybe concerned we are about this. You both referenced a study that you've mentioned a couple of times, Mark, by I think Perry and Whitehead, if I'm not mistaken. I think that's an Oxford Press book. I think I read it about four years ago when it came out. It's been some time. And Mike,

you cite them and then Mark, you're kind of critical of that, saying, I don't accept their study at all. Now, there could be different reasons why you're citing it. But let me maybe start with, let me come back to you, Mark, and then I'll give your thoughts on this, Mike, because I know you read Mark's book and you can kind of assess. But this is a book, this is a statistic that's been cited all over the place, referred to. And if I'm not mistaken, it's 51.9% are either somewhat or favorable towards Christian nationalism. And you say, if so, we should be like deeply concerned, but you don't buy that it's that prevalent. Tell us why. And then Mike, I want your thoughts on it. Now, first of all, I go out of my way to say the book has redeeming value. I take Whitehead and Perry to be serious sociologists attempting to do some good.

The problem I have among the problems I have with it is that they use seven statements to which people respond. I strongly disagree to I strongly agree. And these almost six of the seven are very ambiguous. So, for instance, the federal government should legislate Christian values. Well, if I strongly agree, is that Christian nationalism? If in my mind, Christian values are peace, justice, and equality, not at all. I can easily imagine the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. strongly agreeing with that statement. On the other hand, if I take it to mean that we're going to have an established national church and punish heretics, yeah, that would be a horrible form of Christian nationalism.

Three of the statements have to do with whether or not you support the strict separation of church and state. So should students going to Biola be able to receive guaranteed student loans or Pell Grants? The strict separationists would say no. If you might, I and Mike say yes, they should. We're getting a lot of points in the Christian nationalist scale. One of the fun questions I really like is our statements, the success of the United States is part of God's plan. In my mind, this kind of measures if you're a Calvinist or not. A Calvinist would say, of course, and also the failures of the United States. And by the way, so are the failures of Great Britain and France and Spain. And so to my way of thinking, six of these seven statements simply do not get at

what they call Christian nationalism. And again, the picture they paint is of a toxic stew, racism, sexism, militarism, just all these evil isms. And I don't think their measures measure that at all. And yet they're claiming that 51.9% of Americans fully or partially embrace this, including, by the way, 65% of African Americans, which maybe causes them a little embarrassment since this is supposedly a racist, toxic stew. That jumped out to me when the number of African Americans fell in the category of Christian nationalism based on this metric. And like you said, it's supposed to be kind of a white supremacist kind of movement. That gave me pause with the metric.

Mike, your thoughts on kind of the prevalence here and his critique of the Perry kind of metric that's used. Yeah, when I read the book a few years ago as well, I just remember reading it on my Kindle as I was trying to go to sleep at night. You know, for me, that's good. But, you know, I highlighted it and then went back to it for this. So in short, I agree in the sense of,

I think as a philosopher, you know, all those provisos that 50% or 51% is too high. I think reading Mark's book and some other criticisms, I would put that it sympathizes adherence in the 20% to 30% range, depending on how you cash that out. So I would agree, it's not an existential threat to the church. Gates of hell aren't going to prevail against the church, then nationalism won't. But maybe I'll, I guess I want to, I guess I want to tell a story though. So I'll make it quick, but it's a story. So it's not, you know, it's a friend of mine. He's a pastor in Phoenix. He was a neo-Nazi skinhead. And because he started spending time with the Christians who

basically had him to their house every week for a meal for a year or two, he ended up coming to Christ. And now he's a pastor at the church that he'd been there forever. Well, his church kind of him to their house every week for for a meal for a year or two he ended up coming to christ and now he's a pastor at the church that he'd been there forever wow well his church kind of kind of fell apart like a lot did during the covet era but a lot but it was more about about christian nationalism right so he he lost 80 of his congregation he would say to that because he was he wasn't taking like political stands he was just repudiating kind of the Christian nationalism we both that we've talked about that we reject. The church has grown back since then. But my point is that in that way, it's a threat to the health of individual congregations.

And so my congregation, you know, it's a PCA church. It's not a threat to ours. I mean, we have some that might say they are. We've got a political mix in our congregation. But that's what I'm more concerned about, not the church, capital C, but a church like that. It really is dividing families, dividing churches. So I'm concerned about that part. As far as the existential threat to America, no, but I would say potentially so.

Only because when you kind of look and think about social change and how it works, and it can grow, that could be a potential danger. I think our institutions are relatively strong still, but I see the potential there, I guess is what I would say, to a threat to our democracy. So I don't think the sky is falling, but in 10 years, possibly. Can I jump in real quick, John, and just say that my book came out before Tim Alberta's recent book did. And he's a journalist and he went and visited a lot of churches and these poor pastors, you know, there are people are coming to them from the right saying you need to endorse Donald Trump. You need to do this, that, and the other thing. And people are coming from the left saying you have to repudiate Christian nationalism. And he tells plenty of stories where churches are ripped asunder,

pastors lose their jobs. And so I agree with Mike. I think there's a lot of problems that come about because of this. My main objection is the language used by these leading academics and critics, quote after quote from them, saying how our nation's on the brink of ruin because of this Christian nationalism, that we're one step away from the handmaid's tale, or where Jim Crow legislation is right around the corner. These are ridiculous claims, and I think it would be really helpful if we could move away from them and really maybe even get away from arguing about Christian nationalism and just have an honest discussion about the issue. Should we protect the lives of unborn children?

What sort of policies should we have to address America's abject history with respect to race? Let's have substantive discussions to get away from whether or not someone should be labeled a Christian nationalist. That's really helpful. I appreciate you sharing that story, Mike. The hard part is analyzing stories when you get one take on it, right? There's churches that divide over Black Lives Matter, over vaccines, over a ton of issues. And part of the question is, is it really Christian nationalism at the core, or is there something else going on and this is the excuse? That's where it's so ambiguous. And in some ways, I wish we had a Barna study that was like 80 pages long that asked the

most nuanced questions that could really define what it is. A lot of these studies about Christian nationalism are like, do you agree with five things? Do you agree with seven things here? And then they come up with this metric. And especially as a philosopher, like you said earlier, Mark, I'm going, wait a minute. What are Christian values? What do we mean by prayer in schools? Is it led?

Is it private? These things are just so not nuanced and conclusions are drawn. So let me ask the two of you how you would assess this. So you seem to agree that it's not an existential threat, certainly to the church, less so to the government. How much do the two of you think that the label Christian nationalism is used to just kind of silence conservatives? I haven't heard. Yeah, let's leave it right there. How much is just this a label, whether it's in a publication or online for anybody who wants to bring their faith in

Christian nationalism is like a stopper to marginalize someone's position because they don't want to have the very debates that Mark was talking about. Let's talk about the issues. Does that concern you, Mike? And then I'll come back to you, Mark. Yeah, I would say in some ways, this is why I wrote it and on both sides of some people wanting to sort of redeem the term nationalism and make it palatable. I find that really problematic for Christians to do, maybe change the definitions, which philosophers can do. But this word has a political, historical, social meaning. But look here, two examples jump to mind. I think it was last spring or summer, a pundit on MSNBC talked about, well, this person believes that Christian

nationalists believe that our rights are given to us by God. I'm like, I mean, I'll die on that hill. You know, as a Christian, that's where they come from. Now, I'm not saying that's the only way you can make a case. I know atheists and other people give other cases for it. But if being a Christian, that's where they come from. Now, I'm not saying that's the only way you can make a case. I know atheists and other people give other cases for it. But if being a Christian, if that's what Christian, that's not what it is. That's I mean, and so that's an example of what you've said, like, well, that's somebody who's so uninformed about the role of religion and human rights, arguments and discourse that they're just afraid of it. You know, we have a problem with certain segments of the media that just are ignorant of religion. I mean, you have media,

people who cover religion would say that. Another one would be, I've seen people use it. Like if you're a conservative Christian and you're pro-life and you try to make the case for that position politically, socially, you're therefore a Christian nationalist. That's not Christian nationalism. That's just bringing your faith to bear in the public discourse.

So I think it's a term that gets used by some on the left or center left to sort of, like you said, it's sort of like a branding. Then I don't have to engage the arguments. And some on the right, I think there's a reaction to some on the right of, well, you think it's so bad, I'm going to, I am one, you know, and then sort of make it. And then we're just, we're not doing what Mark said, what I would want. And of course, we're academics, political scientists, philosopher. I want to, let's have the arguments. Let's talk about for and against, morally about abortion. And then for and against, what should the law say about that?

Those are important arguments to have. But I mean, you know, academics have been complaining about public discourse since Plato. So, but I think that, But I think it's vital. That's why we've got to have a shared definition and not allow it just to be used as a way to silence people or as a way to punch back, to punch left or punch right. That's helpful. Mark, your take. Yeah, so definitely the polemical authors, Catherine Stewart, Julie Ingersoll, Michelle Goldberg, Bradley Onishi, they're absolutely using it as a cudgel to shame Christians, to make it seem inappropriate to bring their faith into the public square. But I would point to academics like Whitehead and Perry. They literally say in their book, if you are pro-life, you are simply concerned with controlling women's bodies, and therefore you're a sexist. And they don't even acknowledge the fact that women are just as likely to be fully

pro-life as men. And that would certainly come as a surprise to my wife to learn that she's a sexist because she's pro-life. Similarly, they say, if you think freedom of religious liberty means more than the freedom to worship, you're a bigot. And they obviously have people like Jack Phillips in mind, and I think it's inaccurate to call him a bigot, but religious liberty in America has always meant more than the freedom to worship. And so I think this shows these implicit biases. Again, I do think they're implicit in that case. And all of these authors go out of their way to praise the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his political action because they like that political action. And let me be clear, I like it too. But they want to look at us pro-lifers or pro-religious liberty people and say, you guys are Christian nationalists and that's a bad thing.

You should be ashamed. You should be very, very ashamed. And so that's why I want to push back against it and say, no, this is ridiculous labels. It's ridiculous arguments. One of my favorite sections of the book is where I go through Andrew Seidel's horrible work on the U.S. Supreme Court, where he argues the U.S. Supreme Court has been taken over by white Christian nationalists. And he points to case after case. In some sense, it seemed to favor Christianity, right? A World War I era cross is permitted to remain on public land. It was erected in 1925, but he doesn't even mention that Stephen Breyer and Allegra Kagan voted in favor of it, two Jewish justices. And of course, Clarence Thomas, African-American,

gets slumped in with these white Christian nationalists. Yeah, so most of this literature is ridiculous. There are exceptions, Mike's book, Paul's book, Tobias Kramer's book, and that book might allow us to get into one of your questions about the extent to which this is an American phenomenon or something going on in other countries. Oh, let's come back to that in just a second. I have one more question for you. As I see it, and it could be wrong that I'm missing it, it seems to be more of a designation that the left does to the right, rather than the secular does to both political aisles. Now, my point in making this is not

whether the right or left does this more often. I haven't done any analysis whether this is the case, but you can point towards many recent examples of those who'd be on the left politically that bring their faith to bear. And just to give an example, I remember Obama and same-sex marriage talked about equality that was in the Bible, and he referenced specifically that God created us equally. Harris recently has talked about meeting with her pastor and sharing her faith. I think of the Reverend, of course, Jesse Jackson, the Reverend Warnock, who defined themselves by their Reverend title. Maybe I've missed it. I haven't heard anybody say that's Christian nationalism. So as I see it, it seems to be a critique of the right more so than the left. Or am I missing this? And it's really towards any Christians bringing their faith to bear on this one. I'd love to know what both of you think. Mike, what's your take on this?

Yeah, I mean, I'm like you. I haven't seen any kind of study or data, but just from someone who's been involved in the reading and the literature and the online stuff, definitely seems to be used primarily to the right of center or further right. That's how the label gets used now in some ways it's that's fair in one sense in the sense that that a lot of such people are adopting a label embracing it um but it's not fair in the sense that others on the left are coming from a religious perspective and what and that's informing their policy views so i would i think the difference and again this is never going to happen in public discourse because we don't want to be nuanced and fine grained, right? But I think,

but I think there's a, I think, I think of it more as there's a, the tension is more about inclusivism and exclusivism and the tension between liberty and responsibility, these tensions that we have. And so, you know, think about like the baking cakes for a same-sex wedding, right? Those tensions show up there. But look, I think this is something, as I've written this in other books, I've thought, how much do I do this, right? Where I don't really have an in-principle problem with people bringing their faith to their own politics.

In fact, I try to do that. I don't know how I couldn't do that, that right given my commitments and those kind of things but it it's more about how you do it and balancing that with liberty and pluralism and democracy and at least on one extreme of christian nationalism on the right there's this yeah heretics put in jail executed i mean these are in books it's not just some random guy on Twitter or X. So there are some concerns there. But I guess the short answer is, yeah, it gets used that way more than the other way. Because if you agree with the person on the left, you don't care if it's a religious reason, they're on your side, right? And really quickly, Mike, you would agree that

those books and those authors who claim the things that you're saying are extreme within the Christian community and have a small audience of influence? Yeah. One thing that gets a problem with social media is it makes it look like these books are being bought by 100,000 people when it's more like six or 10 or whatever. Six or 10. All right, Mark, your take. Six or 10,000. Sorry. It's still a decent amount, but yeah, I know what you meant. Yeah. Okay, good. No, that's exactly right. Yeah. So almost solely, this has been used against people on the right. And I've painfully watched the presidential debates and vice presidential debates. And I think the democratic nominees have quoted scripture at least as much, if not more than the the Republican nominees. Until 2022, only one

elected member of Congress identified herself as a Christian nationalist, and that was Marjorie Taylor Greene. Just a month or two ago, Josh Hawley identified himself as a Christian nationalist. So that gets us up to two. But if you actually watch his speech at the NatCon convention, pretty much all he says, I think you, Mike, and I would agree, yeah, this is not bad stuff. He's not advocating for what these other people are advocating for. There are a handful of Christians who have come out advocating for Christian nationalism. I don't really even count Torbert Isker as writing a book. It's more of an extended pamphlet, and it's more of a screed. Stephen Wolf has written a serious book. Doug Wilson has come

out and said, well, it's kind of salvageable. One important thing to note about this, despite the cover of Stephen Wolf's book, none of these guys are nationalists as we generally understand the word. They are all convinced the United States of America is a failed nation. Stephen Wolf says it might be the case that a Christian nation could arise within the borders of the United States of America. And he talks in terms of governors interposing themselves between their state and the federal government. So maybe Alabama could break away from the union and become a Christian nation. And he would call that a Christian nation. Now, this is, first of all, it's just flights of fantasy, I think.

But I think we also need to understand that these folks are not advocating for nationalism as we usually use the word. And I think you said it already, if you didn't and I did. These are idiosyncratic Calvinists. They are not representative Calvinists broadly. They're all circled around Doug Wilson in Moscow, Idaho. Doug Wilson published Stephen Wolfe's book. He endorsed it. He endorsed Torben Esker, his own book. Christendom is coming out of this milieu, and they're not selling well. Again, once Wolfe's book came out and was number one in an Amazon subcategory,

people like Whitehead and Perry said, there it is, evidence of a massive Christian movement. But I actually, as of last year, his book had only sold 6,500 copies. That's about exactly as many as Whitehead and Perry had sold. And that's an academic book. You know, this is not a New York Times bestseller. It's not anything close to one. You referenced one of the first books jumping up in 2006, Mark. And then I think it was in your book, Mark. It was really two years ago in 2022 or so that people started using the label more intentionally. I want to know from each of you, why are we talking about this now? I mean, the last two or three years, it's kind of skyrocketed where I read the New York Times, I read the Wall Street Journal, sometimes USA Today. I try to follow what's going on in conversation, and it

seems like it's just come out of nowhere. Now, I have a two cents and a theory on this, but why do you think, Mike, we're just talking about this so much now, and we even need to have this show to clarify what it is and whether it's a threat or not. Yeah, I guess I'd want to say two things. One, historical, and one, sort of the rhetorical point is that, you know, I had like a roundtable here with students and faculty, and I did it like a praise of my book just to get discussion going. But the historians in the room are like, well, this, as I described, well, this is nothing new. We may not have called it Christian nationalism, but a lot of the similar ideas. So one of our historians is know, in those cases, we would say an abuse of Christian thought, Christian teaching or doctrine to justify like the doctrine of discovery, things like that. So I mentioned some of the stuff in the book. So I just want to say historically, even though I think that that Mark's right, this term doesn't show up. I think you see it some in the

70s a bit, but generally, but the substance of it in some sense has been present for centuries. But more to the point today, it's just weird. Oh, go ahead. Let me jump in for a second point. You said here, tell people what context you're speaking of with the professors and students. Yeah, now I don't even know what I said. I think you're referring to where you're teaching. I'm not sure we even mentioned that. Gotcha. Yeah.

So I teach at Eastern Kentucky University, a comprehensive public school in central Kentucky. So our students are from Appalachia, the majority of them. We had a discussion about that. And so a historian who teaches here and others mentioned, you know, sort of the historical perspective is it's not a rise in nationalism in the sense of it's brand new. It's just been around in America under different guises and different labels for, you know, since even before the founding. So out of my expertise, but I wanted to put that into the conversation here for people to think about if they'd like to. Perfect. And your second point. Second point is I first came across, it was called Christianism by Andrew Sullivan in 2014 or 2015,

a piece that I read. And so I taught this in an honors class I teach just to kind of get the juices going. It's a great thing to have discussion with freshman college students who are interested in this kind of topic. So that's where I started following it. And there's a weird thing. Like the first it was, there's no, one's a nationalist. This is just a made up thing to, well, maybe some people are too. It's not so bad to, we should be nationalists. Now, admittedly social media is its own little bizarre realm of our culture but i think we've seen that happen

and so i think i think i think one reason it comes out more is people are starting to adopt it you know the people we mentioned i mean lauren bober didn't call herself a nationalist but she does say the church should direct the government you know that's a nationalist belief so i think there's just it's just one more thing to churn the algorithms and to get attention. But underneath all that, as I think both Mark and I would agree, there is something that we would strongly disagree with. And we might disagree on the potential as a threat or the danger posed right now, but that's what I would say. That's great. Yeah, that's helpful. Mark. Yes, I agree with Mike. Absolutely. That you can trace this idea that you probably you can't talk about Americans in the early colonies, but the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay are people chosen by God to do his work in the new world. And this work might involve taking land from the Native Americans.

And it might involve some good things like reforming the criminal laws of Massachusetts Bay in really, really good manners. You got the manifest destiny, the creation of established churches. Yes, I think that's absolutely right, that you can trace the general constellation of ideas. Well, you'd have to go back to Europe, right? And you'd have to do this for both Protestantism and Catholicism. So yeah, it's an old idea that can be traced back. So I am speaking very specifically of the use of Christian nationalism, people throwing around charges of Christian nationalism. Just to stay in the last 50 years, I think this assault on Christian nationalism is just actually a logical extension of the attack on the religious right. Beginning in the 1980s, you had book after book after book talking about the evils of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and

Ralph Reed and how these folks wanted to lead a Christian takeover of America for God and oppress women and so forth and so on. And so, yeah, it's a label that arose in 2006. It's a new label, but it's an old idea. And I think, incidentally, that there's things we should be critical about, even in the religious rights. I'm not saying it's totally misbegotten criticism, but I do think we have to take a step back and especially look at the hypocrisy. Again, almost all these people are perfectly happy to praise the abolitionists, to praise the civil rights movement as Christians appropriately bringing their faith into the public square. But when it turns to pro-lifers or pro-religious liberty people, that's evil, horrible Christian nationalism.

And I think we should puncture that balloon. I think it's just ridiculous. I might add that it's an effective tool. It sounds terrible, Christian nationalism, kind of our current moment, at least to a certain segment of people. So when you get a title and a phrase that works, kind of run with it. And we've also moved in a more secular direction on a lot of different ways. So it's on people's radar more. And given now, I mean, just from the last election to today,

how much we've seen a shift on abortion. I mean, Trump in 2016 running on that, now running away from it is indicative of how much culture has shifted and hence terms like Christian nationalism might land with deeper concern than they did in the past. So I think there's like a perfect storm of the things you guys described here and others at play. Let's shift to some of our thoughts on Christian nationalism. Now, this is a broad term, so you can answer it in different ways. But we often hear that the U.S. is a Christian nation. And at the root of at least three of the definitions that Douthat gave involved being a Christian nation, but in different ways. So I'll go back to you with

Mike on this one. Would you agree America is a Christian nation in any sense? Should we push back on that and be concerned about that? How should we think about that without buying into some of the bad ideas within Christian nationalism? Yeah, I would say that America is a Christian nation in the particular sense that the ideals, the founding ideals, at least not necessarily how they were applied and all, you know, setting that aside, but just the ideals themselves, liberty, equality, justice, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, all those, those basic fundamental human rights. And that I think those for many, for Mark, I know the history better than me, but for a significant portion of them, what we're grounded in some kind of theism, some Christian theism for sure. And so I think the best arguments for those things are, are Christian theism. So in that sense, yes, our founding ideals are best grounded in a Christian worldview, broadly speaking.

Not a Christian nation in the sense that I think a lot of people maybe wanted to be Christian nationalists and others, and that the Christians should have pride of place in our country, or that the government should, like Christianity, should have a special place or have a special sort of considerations from the government. I don't think that's right. Even if it was the case historically, just given the population now, we have to live together. The diversity, the pluralism of thought, of religion or no religion. And so we're in a democracy.

We've got to live together here and sort of hash it out in a reasonable and hopefully nonviolent manner. That's helpful. Mark, your take on what Mike shared and whether you think we have a Christian nation or should have a Christian nation. Yeah. So a couple of books ago, I had a book called Did America Have a Christian Founding? And I answer that question with a resounding yes. But I'm very careful to explain what I mean by that. And basically, I mean, like Mike was talking in terms of influence. I go out of my way to say that I do not like the language of America was founded as a Christian nation, because that sounds very exclusive, like it's a nation founded by and for Christians. And maybe we'll put up with non-Christians or maybe we won't. And we'll certainly favor Christians over others. That was not the founders' views, even in the 18th century.

So Article VI of the Constitution bans religious tests for federal office. The anti-federalists objected. They said, well, this means a Jew or Muslim or an atheist could hold federal office. And the federalists had to say, that's right. One of my favorite letters from this era, now in the late 18th century, of Americans of European descent, 98% Protestant, 2% Roman Catholic, there are about 1,500 Jews in four or so American cities. George Washington, President Washington, writes a wonderful letter to the Hebrew congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, where he makes it crystal clear that this tiny non-Christian minority has the exact same right, not just to worship, but to freely exercise their faith as anyone else in America. To bigotry,

we give no sanction, he wrote. And so I think the ideals of the founding really are religious equality for all. And America has tried to live up to those ideals. We've fallen short too many times. But by the mid-20th century, we were doing a really good job. And this is reflected well in 1993 with the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 97 to 3 in the Senate, unanimous in the House, signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Unfortunately, in the 21st century, we've taken a turn, especially people on the political left. They want to talk about the freedom to worship. They want to say that you don't have a right to bring your faith into the public square. Just yesterday, we heard one presidential candidate say there should be no

religious exceptions when it comes to abortion. I can only take it that she's talking about doctors, nurses, pharmacists shouldn't be able to rescuse themselves from performing an abortion for religious reasons. This has been protected as a matter of federal law since 1973, and the protections have only been increased. That a presidential candidate would turn her back on that is just shocking and dismaying. So let me ask you guys this. It sounds like you guys agree that historically America was founded as a Christian nation. By the way, when I hear Christian nation, it's somewhat of an oxymoron because in the Old nonetheless, we can use the term. Both of you agree that historically, America was not primarily a secular experiment. It wasn't a Muslim experiment. It wasn't a Buddhist experiment. But it was shaped by Christian ideas historically,

and also philosophically, things like equality, religious liberty, human rights, even though, of course, it wasn't practiced. That's for sure, like you said, Mike. So historically and philosophically, America came out of certain Christian principles. And then you also both say, but we don't want America to be favored. We don't want Christianity to be favored at all in America. How do we keep those two in balance? How do we keep the historical and philosophical roots that make America, America that stem from Christianity without at least favoring it in some fashion or another? What does that look like in your minds? Mike, I'm going to go to you.

Yeah. So I would say in one way, because the ideals themselves don't allow us to push back against us doing that, if that makes sense. So the Christian ideals of freedom of liberty, life, pursuit of happiness, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, of liberty life pursuit of happiness freedom of conscience freedom of religion those very ideals say as christians we're not trying to favor right so so that's me i don't know if that makes sense maybe yeah i guess i'm saying the ideals themselves give us that would have us pause to say that so they're christian ideals they can be reached other ways so you know you can other kind of arguments you can give. And some of those ideals, there's a Christian stream, but sort of a common law, other things. So how do we do that? I think we do that by, you know, maybe C.S. Lewis says this best. He talks about he wouldn't want there to be a Christian government because of the golden rule. So in a

way that you would imagine Lewis does this memorably, he says, so imagine I live in an Islamic Republic, we're out drinking alcohol as a band. If I lived there, I wouldn't want them to not let me have my pints of ale every day. By the same token, I wouldn't want a government to enforce certain Christian ethical principles. Now there's gonna be a line here

because Christian ethical principles include don't murder. So it's not, there's going to be fuzziness, but there's something to that, I think, where broadly speaking, we want to provide the space for people to pursue their vision of the good life, to allow others to do the same, protect the vulnerable, right? All the different things, including the unborn, all the different things that we think are good to do one because of the Christian principle itself. Of course, the question is, can we maintain that principle of equality without a Christian roots? We don't have to have that debate, but that's a helpful way of looking at it itself. Mark, your thoughts on that question?

Yeah, I think that is an important question. And I think I agree with Mike almost completely. So the way the story of religious liberty in the West is often told is either A, we got tired of killing ourselves over matter of faith. So we had a prudential compromise and said, OK, we won't do this. Or B, the Enlightenment came along and we were saved from our bigotry by Enlightenment rationalism. I argue in Did America Have a Christian Founding that it's actually the Christian arguments of William Penn and Roger Williams and Isaac Backus and John Leland making very biblical and Christian theological arguments in favor of religious liberty that won the day.

So by the time we get to the late 18th century, we have firmly entrenched this notion of religious equality at the national level, and it begins to work into the states. Now, it takes the states longer. States start voluntarily getting rid of their religious tests for office. We have a lot of controversy with when Roman Catholics become significant numbers in America in the mid-19th century, well into the mid-20th century. But as I said, I think by the time you get to the 1960s, there really had been a consensus that arose that all Americans should be able to act upon the religious convictions whenever possible, unless the state has a compelling reason to keep them from doing so. And it does so in the least intrusive means possible. So if you have a Christian scientist that believes she shouldn't get medical treatment for an easily treatable disease for her child, yeah, the state's going

to intervene and say, no, the state's going to intervene and say, no, you don't get to act on that religious conviction. But generally, when it comes to most things, even things like using illegal narcotics like peyote, the answer should be, yeah, we're going to permit the Native American to use peyote in a religious ceremony, even though other people aren't permitted to do so. And generally, the courts have been pretty good about these things. And where the courts have failed, the legislatures have oftentimes stepped in to pass laws, both at the national and state level. And at their best, we're ensuring that the laws, that the rights of all Americans are protected. If anyone wants to talk to me about passing laws just to protect

Christians, I'll say, get out of here, right? I'm completely uninterested in having that question. Let's talk about protecting the rights of all religious citizens, or just forget it. I have no interest in that. How much does it concern both of you that, like, say you come into a church and you see an American flag? Like, you have the Christian flag, you have a cross, you have the American flag, or singing songs like, you have the American flag or singing songs like God bless America or this kind of like, it was actually my family member who's from another country who started pointing some of these things out to me. I never really thought about it that much years ago. Is that a kind of Christian nationalism? Obviously, this is not like some of the books you referred to. It's like, let's lock people up and let's force our laws on other. Do you have concern about that?

And if so, how high would you rate that on the scale of like your concerns about Christian nationalism? What do you think, Mike? Yeah, so I'll say this as a more as a personal preference to a degree that I there's a sometimes there's a flag in the auditorium just in a stand we move it and not because we're you know anti-american but just this is the gathering of god's people and to have a flag there seems it's troubling to me and i think that's right so i think that so that's what I would say. It's not nationalism, but I think we should be careful what that communicates. Having a flag while we're worshiping Jesus.

OK, what's your take, Mark? Yeah, I agree. And I'll point out something that I think is even more problematic. We spent eight years in the American South and would go into churches and would see both the American flag and the Christian flag, and the American flag would be in the place of honor, which is sort of startling if you think about it. So yeah, I think plenty of churches probably have an American flag and they don't mean any sort of horrific Christian nationalism by it, but generally I think it's a bad idea. I'll point out just for fun that Stephen Wolfe is crystal clear in the case for Christian nationalism that flags have no business in the sanctuary of a church.

So he's kind of on our side with this. That really surprised me when I saw that, because it just shows how what we mean by Christian nationalism can't put it in a box. We're using the term, that would almost be another definition that we didn't even list earlier as one of the four. So that was a helpful point that you made. Let me take a step back. In a minute, I want you to give me kind of your biblical reaction to Christian nationalism. But on your list of things that concern you, and you don't have to give me your list of what those things are, I want to know where you would rank Christian nationalism, either for the church or for the wider American culture.

And I'll tell you, for me, two years ago, I wrote a book for students, and it was kind of on ethical issues facing students. It's called a Rebel's Manifesto and talked about 15 or 20 different big issues facing students. And I came to that list from speaking to students. I was teaching high school at the time. I talked to a ton of youth pastors. It actually didn't even cross my mind to make a chapter on Christian nationalism. Now, if I wrote it today, I might towards the back, maybe because people are talking about it. But for most students today, it wasn't even in my top 20. And I had a progressive Christian press me on this. And I

just said from talking to students and doing research, maybe I'm missing it. I just don't see it as one of the top issues really pressing this generation. I want to know if you guys agree or if you disagree on this and maybe just kind of where you would rank it. I'll start with you on this one, Mark. Yeah, so overall, it ranks pretty low on my radar screen. Q has this great study, 2022-2024. 50% of Americans haven't even heard of Christian nationalism. Of those who have, 25% have a negative view of it, and only 5% of Americans have a positive view. And I even wonder there, maybe some of those Americans who have a positive view just

think, well, I'm a Christian, and I'm a patriot. So I guess I'm a Christian nationalist without embracing all this toxic stuff. I will say, though, I have noticed among young men in their 20s, if they're Protestants, and they're just sick of liberalism, political liberalism, classical liberalism, they are drawn in this direction of Christian nationalism. If they're Roman Catholics, they're drawn in this direction of integralism. And so I am a bit concerned about that. And I do, whenever I have a chance, try to reach out to those individuals or those groups and chat with them. And as I suggested, I don't think it's an existential threat to our constitutional order, but I definitely, Tim Alberta and others have

convinced me that too many churches have been ripped asunder by this. And so I think, yeah, we need some good teaching. And I'd like to think that people like Paul Miller and myself and Mike are hopefully writing books aimed at Christians that will hopefully help them take a reasonable position on this. And to the extent to which they're Christian nationalists, even benign Christian nationalists of the sort I described. Remember, I'm critical of this benign Christian nationalism. I think it's a bad idea for multiple reasons, and these Christians should repudiate it. Mike? Yeah, so I would say it's probably higher on my list um but for particular reasons that i some that mark just mentioned but my worry is more how it piecemeal seeps in here and there

so it's not necessarily that christian nationalism is taking over the church but but that it's like maybe a segment of of Christians are less concerned about the religious liberty of all. They're just more concerned about our own religious liberty. Or, you know, Russell Moore tells a story, again, anecdotal evidence, but of going, you know, having numerous pastors tell him they would quote something from the Sermon on the Mount. And this isn't just nationalism. This is political stuff more generally, but nationalism's a part of it so they'd quote as an aside something from the sermon on the mount and then a parishioner or a congregant would come up after the service and where'd you get those liberal talking points or those woke talking points and the pastor would

say well i'm quoting jesus from matthew you know matthew 5 10 or whatever and instead of like oh that's in the bible i need to you know take that into account and ask God to work however he would want for me to live that out. It's, well, that doesn't work where we're at right now, right? That, you know, loving your, you know, turning the other cheek doesn't work. So that's what concerns me is that it's the fruit of what I think is a deeper problem. And then we really aren't, we're struggling with discipleship in many ways in the church in America. We're struggling with the spiritual formation of both 20-something-year-old men and people from birth to death.

We're not being discipled in the way of Christ enough. And I don't mean that as a criticism of pastors. I just mean the church. We're all responsible for that. And so that's where it becomes a worry for me that it's a symptom and a way that people can go wrong when they haven't cultivated that sort of inner Christ likeness, the intellectual and moral virtue that we need. And as Americans, you know, I was talking about this in class today, the founders talked about the importance of citizens being, having basic knowledge and having, being

people of character, of moral and intellectual virtue. And so that doesn't have to necessarily be Christ-likeness in the full sense that we would talk about, that we want followers of Jesus, but the democratic experiment, so to speak, is not going to work unless there's a shared view of knowledge and a baseline of moral decency that enough citizens have to engage in these difficult discussions and these political fights and then hash out a compromise and try to live together in a better place than we found it. You know, that's a point I've pushed back on, you said, Mike, about religious liberty and intentionally said not just for Christians but for all.

But I'm not sure I've thought about that that may come from a certain Christian nationalist perspective. But that's fair. That's an important way here and there to just push back for people on certain ideas maybe they've adopted without really thinking about it. A couple last questions for you. One is, this could be an entire conversation itself, so maybe if you could each give us just one or at most two principles, kind of biblical concerns with this. Why biblically should we take issue with Christian nationalism? So not politically, not historically, not philosophically, but is there maybe one pause like biblically, this is what concerns me. Let me start with you, Mark. So I'll mention two things briefly, if I may. First of all, to the extent to which Christianity

and Christian nationalism involves the conflation of God and country, Christians can't have anything to do with it, right? We're first and foremost citizens of the kingdom of God, and we must be willing to step back and critique our country if our country is engaged in moral or ungodly activity. And I think scriptures are clear about that. And then secondly, I think you mentioned it, the golden rule. This is the most obvious application, right? I don't want to send my children to public schools and have them subjected to Islamic prayer or Jewish prayer or Sikh prayer. And so I should understand that they don't want to send their kids to public school and have them subjected to Christian prayer. And so I think if we simply apply the golden rule on these

sorts of questions, a lot of these problems could be erased. And a lot of the things actual Christian nationalists are advocating for, they would recognize they ought not to advocate for them. Mike, go ahead. Yeah, I fully agree with both of those points. I would say, I think you know this, Sean. I mean, I was a student and staff with crew for several years. So when Christian nationalists talk about the Great Commission, that Matthew 28 passage, my ears perk up. And Torben Isker do this and some others where they talk about making disciples of all nations and then they interpret that as we've got to like take over the government and influence the government to make disciples kind of from the top down right but but the making of disciples of the

nations first of all nations are people groups not nation states I think that's at least what I was always taught and I think that's right too that's church's job. So this is kind of a dimension of what Mark already said. The church is the one to fulfill the Great Commission, to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, not the government. We want the government to let us do that, to be free to do that. And we'll risk our lives to go into nations where that's punishable by imprisonment or death, as God calls us there. So that's one like biblical issue the other it's related to neighbor the golden rule but uh i talk about this in my book the parable of the good samaritan and that you know when the the young man challenges jesus well who is my

neighbor and then jesus tells that parable the good samaritan right he jesus actually flips the question on its head um it's not who is my neighbor it's how can i be a neighbor the samaritan becomes the exemplar of loving your neighbors yourself when you would have thought it would have been right the levite or the the religious leader and i've seen christian nationalists they they tend to draw that circle too narrowly and then they who is they'll ask the question some who is my neighbor and the answer will be my family the people in my community and draw that circle too narrowly. They'll ask the question, who is my neighbor? The answer will be my family,

the people in my community. I'm all for local involvement. If your time is going to be spent arguing on Facebook about politics or serving the poor in your local community or volunteering at a crisis pregnancy center, do the local stuff. But in a world like ours, where there's travel and technology we have opportunities to love others as well beyond just our physical community and just because they're from another nation or another religion they're human they're

made in god's image we've got to love them and we keep and so they're gonna i mean i'm not really thinking i mean sort of about immigration but but just more generally our Christian attitudes towards people outside of our borders. Because Torben Nisker, for example, will talk about protecting our nation from alien people and alien worldviews. But one thing I want us to think about with immigration or just international relations in general is some of those people coming across our border or that are suffering overseas and not coming across the border, they're also our brothers and sisters in Christ. And that's supposed to be a deeper bond than fellow Americans. And so I want to challenge that thought of us and them and think about the church as this transnational body of believers that are also supposed to reach out to anybody because they're made in God's image. At this point, there's some folks who would want us to have a debate about immigration, but that is a conversation for another time. Minimally, the point you say in

your book is the language that we use matters, how we describe people made in God's image, and how Christians engage in this political debate. I think we can agree with that. Last question. I'm just curious, what's been the feedback on your book? Have you gotten contacted by the New York Times to just, you know, or any other liberal media to say, oh, maybe we weren't characterizing this correctly, or maybe somebody on the right? I have no idea. Are people interested in this, in this correction or not really? Mike, what's been the response? Yeah, I've had some, I mean, kind of more of the, well, sort of like this podcast or YouTube stuff, more of those kinds of conversations.

No, surprisingly, the New York Times hasn't contacted the philosophy professor at Eastern Kentucky University with this 80 page book with Erdman. So I know I'm shocked, shocked as you are. But I would my prayer is that whether I get it, you know, whoever reads the book, that would be helpful to them. That's the bottom line and figuring things out. But I think as Christians, we need to do both. We need to strike that balance of no Christian that we need to push back against the abuses of the term. But we also need to push back against some of the darker parts of this way of approaching politics.

So I would want us to do both of those things. Fair enough. Mike, your book again is called American Christian Nationalism, and it's brief. It's to the point. It's helpful. Mark, yours is, maybe the title is a little bit more provocative. Who's afraid of Christian nationalism? Tell me the response you've gotten. on a panel with Sarah Posner and one of the authors of the McDaniel et al book. And I asked these media people, I said, look, you guys keep going to the same people time after time after time, especially Andrew Whitehead, Samuel Perry, Sarah Posner. Why don't you get an opposing view? That would just seem to be good journalism to me. And, you know, basically almost everyone is wholesale condemning Christian nationalism. Even someone like a Paul Miller, I think, falls way into that. So I would be one of the few people out there saying, hold the horses. This is, you guys are

getting way too excited about something that you're not to get excited to. So I've been frankly disappointed by the media response. But again, like Mike, I'm in a Christian college. I'm not a huge prominent name, and I understand that. So I put the book out there, and God will do with that what he will do with it. And same with Mike's book, I trust. I would have been surprised if both of you said you got a lot of calls, because both of you are saying, let's lower the temperature down. There's concern, but it's not as big as people are saying. It's a concern. The numbers are not as high. Isn't the story that fills up and gets people to read in our shock and awe moment. But I found both of your books helpful and insightful when this topic comes up. Certainly for me, when people ask, I'll send them to your direction. If anybody's watching this and has a

connection and somebody's open to having a conversation in different media, invite them on. And I think that would be helpful. Appreciate you guys. Thanks for just a cordial, thoughtful exchange. You agree on a lot, even though there's some issues that you differ on. I thought this was a wonderful conversation. Really appreciate you guys coming on. Yeah, thanks for putting us together. Before those of you watching, click away and make sure you hit subscribe. We've got some other conversations like this coming up on a range of topics on apologetic cultural engagement worldview. And if you thought about studying apologetics, we would love to have you at Biola University.

We're at the top rate or one of the top rated distance and on-campus programs. And I teach a lot of the classes myself. This is a topic we've discussed in different ways at different times. Information is below. It's online. It's distance. And we also have a certificate program we'd love to plug you into if you're not ready for master's level work, but just want some guidance, studying apologetics.

Information is there. We'll see you soon, fellas. Thanks again for coming on.