Christian Nationalism

Summary

In this episode of Speaking of Faith, Bishop DeDe and Adam Eichelberger discuss the topic of Christian nationalism and building community across difference. They explore the origins of Christian nationalism in the Anglican tradition and its impact on the Episcopal Church. They emphasize that Christian nationalism is blasphemous and goes against the teachings of Jesus, as it prioritizes a Christian agenda over the inclusive love of God. They also highlight how Christian nationalism contradicts the principles of religious freedom and the pursuit of happiness that the United States was founded upon.

Keywords

faith, Christian nationalism, community, difference, Anglican tradition, Episcopal Church, blasphemy, love, inclusivity, religious freedom, pursuit of happiness

Takeaways

Christian nationalism is a prominent issue that goes against the teachings of Jesus and the principles of religious freedom.
Building community across difference requires patience, forgiveness, and a willingness to truly love our neighbors.
Christian nationalism is blasphemous as it prioritizes a Christian agenda over the inclusive love of God.
Our Christian faith should influence our personal lives and civic engagement, but not be used as a means to exclude or harm others.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is about an expansive kingdom of God for all, not a particular people in a particular place.

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time, many of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

Transcript

Bishop DeDe
Hey friends, great to be back. I hope during the break that you were able to rest and get some relaxation. My name is DeDe Duncan-Probe. I'm the Bishop of Central New York and welcome to the podcast: Speaking of Faith. In this podcast, we talk about our faith, we ask questions, we're seeking to understand and to know. And so you're coming into a space of learning and a space of questioning.

This is not about anyone I guess proselytizing anyone. This is about all of us thinking about the real meaning of life and drawing more closely to what is in us, that sense of God in us, that sense of holiness. So whether you're a Christian, an Episcopalian, whether, well, those are two the same things, but you know what I'm saying. Whether you're a Christian or have another faith, welcome to this space where we speak of our faith.

The Diocese of Central New York is from Canada to Pennsylvania, and Utica to Elmira, and all the other places, beautiful places and people in between. I'm joined today by Adam Eichelberger, our Director of Communications for the Diocese. And I'm excited to have this opportunity to talk with you and with Adam about building community across difference. And in particular, we're going to talk a bit about Christian nationalism.

But first, when we left off earlier in the summer, we were talking about listening to one another and to people who have different opinions than ours, having conversations, how we engage in dialogue, and really seeking to understand. And in the last podcast, talked about a bit about how sometimes we're not really wanting to understand. Sometimes we just want people to change their minds and think like us.

And so part of this work of building community across difference involves patience and forgiveness and really repenting of being right all the time and a willingness to truly love our neighbor as we want to be loved. We want to be heard, we want to be listened to. And so to build community across difference is to offer that same invitation to those around us.

Now, Christian nationalism is really very prominent these days. You may be hearing about it or seeing things about it, or you may be hearing people say things that are rooted in it. And so first, as always, I want to kind of reach back into history and see where did this come from? And partly it really comes from the Anglican tradition for us as Episcopalians very much so. In England with Queen Elizabeth, we're talking really way back in history. I went

I went pretty far back, Adam. But the Archbishop of Canterbury, they together believed that the church should be the state at prayer. And so the prayer book and prayerfulness in the Anglican church was very much rooted to the wellbeing of the country. And so even so much so that the, when the company went out from the UK to other countries, they would send with them, missionaries, to spread, you know, the Anglican traditions. So if you ever look at a map of where the company went from England, and you look at a map of the Anglican community today, they're virtually the same map.

So this idea of the state at prayer is very much tied to our Episcopal tradition. So then as the Episcopal Church formed after the Revolutionary War, there was still a sense in which it was the religion of the state. And so for a number of years, you couldn't really be a member of the Senate, I believe, or the House of Representatives if you weren't an Episcopalian even. And so we're complicit in this understanding. But there came a point, and I think especially contemporarily in the Episcopal Church, we really recognized the sinfulness of that.

And I want to say very clearly that I do think Christian nationalism is blasphemous, which is a pretty harsh statement. You're not going to hear that just for those of you who may not know me. That's not something I stay very often. I don't really come out with a blasphemy thing very much, but I do think it is blasphemous because Jesus did not come to us. God did not send us his son to form the United States of America. Jesus came to earth to proclaim the love of Jesus that the kingdom of God has come near. That we can have forgiveness, restoration, that we learn how it is that we live best as humans. We are better when we love our neighbors. We are better when we forgive and seek restoration. We are better and more whole when we love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and when we love our neighbor as ourself. So the gospel of Jesus Christ is about an expansive kingdom of God for all.

It is not about a particular people in a particular place thriving. Now all of us, yes, we bring to our civic life who we are and what we see as integrity and what we believe and what our faith tells us is moral and good. And we want that to be true. I always wonder about people who profess Jesus on Sunday and then harm people on Monday. We are called to live our faith of piety that it's connected to what we do and say and speak, that someone could not even know our faith, but see how we live and see Jesus alive in that way of living. But Christian nationalism is to say that the purpose of America is a Christian agenda, not that our Christian piety influences how we have a civic life.

We are a country that has a constitution that has a whole understanding that there's religious freedom. So much is said about the Second Amendment, but we really need to talk a bit about that First Amendment, that all people have dignity in this country. And so our Christian faith needs to be about our Christian life as persons, not as a civic cudgel with which to harm other people, especially people of other faith.

Now, Adam, I've said a whole bunch of stuff. And I did go all the way back to Queen Elizabeth. you might wanna bring us up to the contemporary. But as you think about Christian nationalism in your own faith as a Christian, what's resonant for you? What would you speak about when you speak about Christian nationalism?

Adam Eichelberger
Well, I think on the surface, think to some people who maybe this idea of Christian nationalism is a new concept because this is something that we see a lot in the news and on TV and we hear about a lot. On the surface, it can kind of seem like a good idea. And what do I mean by that? The idea of a nation being built on or functioning under a Christian moral viewpoint.

Bishop DeDe
Mm. Mm -hmm.

Adam Eichelberger
doesn't necessarily sound like a bad idea at face value. But what happens is in the system or this idea of Christian nationalism is that we are using our Christian faith to create a means of life or a way of living that if you don't meet these standards, you don't have a place here anymore. And it's like you mentioned before Bishop that the idea of Christianity

Bishop DeDe
Right. Mm

Adam Eichelberger
of the all -inclusive and radical love of God is to bring all of humanity, everyone, into himself. And what Christian nationalism espouses is that you don't get to be a part of this if you don't meet these things. And it becomes exclusionary. It becomes contradictory to the idea of something I say a lot, which is we want to bigger tables, not higher walls. And the principles of Christian national literally start talking about

Bishop DeDe
Right. Mm -hmm. Mm That's right.

Adam Eichelberger
building up higher walls to keep people out of the country. Now all of a sudden there are folks who we as Americans find undesirable because they come from a different place or they come from a different background. How antithetical not only to the message of Jesus, but to this thing that we like to call the American dream. Because I mean, I'm gonna be really candid Bishop, people who look like you and me didn't.

Bishop DeDe
Mm -hmm.

Adam Eichelberger
We are not native to this place. This is not our land. We came here and like you said before, we have been complicit in a lot of this for a long time. But for us as people who believe a certain belief or look a certain way to say that now these people aren't Americans anymore because they don't meet this standard.

Bishop DeDe
That's right. Mm -hmm.

Adam Eichelberger
totally flies in the face of those ideas. It's anti -gospel. It is preaching another gospel than that of Jesus.

Bishop DeDe
Well, and it's, it's right, it's anti -gospel and it's just totally in opposition to the Bill of Rights and to the things that we hold dear as patriotic Americans. I one of the falsities of Christian nationalism is somehow it's patriotic. When in fact, it also not only does Christian nationalism, is it blasphemous or it goes against the gospel of Jesus Christ, it also conversely, goes against the principles on which this country was founded. These ideas of freedom of religion and freedom to pursuit of happiness.

And so the wholeness of humanity in this place, it's this wonderful, people call it the experiment of America, is whether or not humans with our greed and our sinfulness and our avarice can have a place where we affirm the right of other people. to be whole in the way that is good for them. And so this idea, I think very much of my sociology professor in high school, it wasn't that far ago, but it was a little while, who used to say that your rights end at the end of your fist. And so as soon as you're touching someone else's reality, then your rights kind of end.

That has been lost a bit with Christian nationalism because it becomes invasive in your home or your family or your decision making. And suddenly it's pervasive in all aspects of life that either you conform to this way of being or you're not accepted here. And so there's an interesting way that I haven't really heard people talk about this, but there's an understanding of theology called Calvinism.

And I'm getting very nerdy here. So I just want to sort of flag this for people who are listening, you're driving home from work thinking what, but the, the idea of chosen people, that there are people that God loves and people that God doesn't, or that there's, there's, there are people who are included and people who are excluded. And we see this all the time. And I think people who are intentionally trying to live moral lives get very

Adam Eichelberger
Yeah

Bishop DeDe
caught up in it, what is morality, what is morality, and kind of lose their way and become so obsessed with what they see as right and wrong that they lose the humanity, not only of their neighbor, but really of Jesus Christ, that Jesus is calling us and encouraging us through the gospel to be people who love all people, that Jesus died once for all. that all of us are included in this gospel narrative of forgiveness and salvation, that there is no Jew nor Greek nor Gentile, to quote apostle Paul, that all of us are part of God's ongoing grace. 

And this means when you're talking about that particular verse, there is no Greek, the Jew or Gentile, the holiness of Judaism that we are right to oppress people ends. It's not about Christians versus Jews, Christians versus Muslims. These are not combative relationships. As Christians, we are called to affirm the dignity of all people, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, as our baptismal covenant tells us, and to love our neighbor as ourself. And that holiness is a real change.

So when we're seeking to do the right things, listener, and we're trying to figure out a life of integrity, to recognize that what we see as our neighbors failing needs our own compassion and forgiveness and redemption. To see in our neighbor the dignity of God and to seek and serve Christ in all persons. Well, this is a deep conversation and we could talk for a very long time about this, but I have to say I want to keep this podcast short because we're going to get into this more and more over the next weeks and months. And I want to make sure that I say here that for this podcast, this is a time of year in the life of the diocese when I need to be smart about my time commitments. So the next podcast will be released on September 28th or is it 28th or 29th?

And at that time, well, I'm gonna continue talking about Christian nationalism, but I wanna talk more about how do we start to draw more closely to our own faith and how do we take these things that seem like a good idea. think it was very poignant what you said, Adam. It can seem like a great idea that Christianity be the measure, the rule.

But for us to look at the ways in which we free ourselves of that, to see it not as a measure of our civic life, but to see in at the call of God to us in our inner life and our own personal lives. We're gonna talk a bit about what God does love and what God is calling us to love with God.

And so I hope in this time, in these spaces, that you'll take some time and think about the words you're using to speak of your faith, what your faith means to you, and how your faith influences your engagement in your civic life. It may be important to think about how we are living our best lives and our best faith in the words that we speak. So until then, dear listener, continue to speak of your faith, and let us continue to learn together. May God bless and keep you, and I'll see you in a couple of weeks.