Speaking Up Against White Christian Nationalism

This year’s elections will be a watershed moment for democracy. Recent elections around the world have reminded us of the turbulence and severity of the questions we face. One factor in that turbulence — the rise of white Christian nationalism — now tests the church and challenges faith communities in every part of the world. 

White Christian nationalism, the “belief in the idea that America was founded by Christians who modeled its laws and institutions after Protestant ideals with a mission to spread the religion and those ideals in the face of threats from non-whites, non-Christians, and immigrants” is a dangerous ideology and a threat to religious liberty. It aims to erode, if not erase, the vital distinction between religion and state by infusing the government with punitive and perilous principles that creates a two-tiered society we have not seen since colonial times. Further, white Christian nationalism seeks to grant its unique, unforgiving interpretation of Christianity a privileged role when enforcing policy for running schools, for making sexual and reproductive decisions, for administering border programs, for structuring our criminal justice system, and for (mis)using the military in foreign affairs.  

White Christian nationalism may sound bizarre and fantastical, but some of its plans and pronouncements have deep roots in the social — specifically racist — history of the United States. White Christian nationalism threatens every effort to correct the systemic racial inequality in this country. And by interweaving racial and religious prejudice it looks alarmingly familiar — one need only recall those photographs of 40,000 Ku Klux Klan members marching down the streets of the nation’s capital 99 years ago, on August 8, 1925.   

White Christian Nationalism will be on every ballot in the fall, and the consequences for communities of faith — and for the practice of open government — have seldom been graver than this one.  

The UCC has, like the Baptist Joint Committee and other religious agencies, joined in sounding the alarm about this idolatrous religious movement. As Amanda Tyler, executive director of the BJC, testified before Congress: “conflating religious authority with political authority is idolatrous and often leads to the oppression of minority and other marginalized groups and as well as the spiritual impoverishment of religion.” 

Rev. John Dorhauer, former General Minister and President of the UCC, delivered this blistering analysis of white Christian nationalism at Elmhurst University in 2023. Two years prior, First Congregational UCC church in Williamstown, MA conducted an interfaith discussion on the challenge of Christian Nationalism that was moderated by Rev. Terry Yasuko Ozawa of the UCC’s Southern New England Conference and was introduced by The Most Rev. Michael Curry, the Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church in the United States. And every January 6 since 2021, my Williamstown church has held a public “standout” on its front steps to testify to alternatives to white Christian nationalism.  This year other UCC churches in the region joined in the call for recentering love and acceptance as the Christian message and for sustaining the separation of religion and state. 

The concern about white Christian nationalism has expanded over time and a coalition of churches led by the UCC congregations in Norwell (MA) and DeKalb (IL) have initiated a UCC-wide effort to present the gospel message as one of inclusion, forgiveness, and divinely inspired love. Called “THIS is Christianity,” this campaign will house testimonials, stories, announcements, and worship resources for anyone and everyone who considers inclusion and loving care rather than division and renunciation to be the gospel’s message for our time and place. If you wish to submit a story from your congregation on actions focused on love, compassion, and inclusion, you can do so here.  

In such moments of crisis, the people of God are called to testify by word and deed not only to the harm that tyranny visits on a people but also to the curative potential of listening, responding with healing words, and speaking up on behalf of those who are oppressed, disheartened, or excluded.  

As people of faith, we must embrace the opportunity presented by this election. This November, let us take a stand against white Christian nationalism and choose to “Vote with Love”. 

Please join us: every congregation — every soul — every voice — is needed. 

David Langston, Deacon 
First Congregational Church, Williamstown MA