In this episode of Democracy on Fire, Kay Brown talks with Pastor Jane Voigts about the rise of Christian nationalism and its growing influence on American politics and society. They explore what Christian nationalism is, how it differs from mainstream Christian faith, and its impact on democracy, religious freedom, immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, healthcare, and more. Pastor Voigts also discusses how faith communities and individuals can push back through awareness, compassion, civic engagement, and a commitment to the separation of church and state.

That when you start, you know, demanding people follow a certain religion, it takes away your freedom to choose that God.

And that's really what so much of evangelical Christianity is like choosing to be born again, choosing Jesus.

Hello, and welcome to Democracy on Fire.

I'm Kay Brown.

So glad you're here.

Today we're going to be talking about Christian nationalism.

Christian nationalism is a far right political movement that is ever more relevant considering the passel of Christian nationalists that President Trump has placed throughout our government and military.

Christian nationalism is a through line that connects a lot of the bad behavior we see going on now, the assaults on democracy, the demise of the rule of law, the threats to our health and personal freedoms.

My guest today will be helping me discuss what Christian nationalism is and how it differs from what mainline denominations practice and what many Christians practice and how these developments are affecting people's lives.

My guest is Pastor Jane Voitz.

She serves at the United Methodist Church of Palm Springs.

She comes to the ministry with a background in professional comedy, of course, and she's writing a book about how the Bible is actually a comedy, of course.

And she's also very interested in.

In the history of Christianity and the church and the rise of Christian nationalism and the effects that it's having on our society today.

So welcome, Pastor Jane.

Thank you, Kay.

I'm glad to be here myself.

What is Christian nationalism?

Well, as we say right now, every week, because we're doing a sermon series on it, quoting from one of the major Christian publications, Christianity Today.

Christian nationalism essentially is a movement that believes that Christianity was always the formative religion and culture that was created in American society.

And we need to keep it that way.

We need to codify it in law that Christian culture will be the one that's in charge, and the faith and the ethics of the faith will be in charge.

And, of course, it's a particular understanding of Christianity, too.

It's not a Christianity that's espoused by all Christians, and it's not necessarily Christianity that's espoused by the United Methodist Church and a lot of what we might call mainline Christian denominations and more traditional expressions of Catholicism and the Episcopal Church as well, and Orthodox and all that.

So being a minister of a Christian church, why do you oppose Christian nationalism?

Well, you know, because there's something so oppressive about the idea that there's one way of understanding how to experience God and it's going to be placed on everybody and kind of Automatically, when you start telling everybody how they need to believe, you suck the spirit, you suck the actual life of the faith tradition out of it.

So that's one part of it.

The other part is that, again, it's a very specific expression of Christianity, and it's as much political as it is spiritual.

And it really is about giving this corner of our culture total power over the rest of the country and really over the rest of the world.

This is not just an American phenomenon.

There's these kind of religious nationalist, Christian nationalist type movements all over the globe.

And.

Yeah, and then the whole idea is this thing called the Seven Mountain Mandate, and we talk about that every Sunday as well.

And that's a big policy goal or a mandate with Christian nationalists.

It's the seven kind of mountains of American culture.

I don't know if I'll get them all right here, just without any notes.

But with government have.

The Christians would have total control over the government.

They'd have total control over the religion.

They would have total control over business.

They would have total control over the media.

They would have total control over arts and entertainment.

And then there's education.

Education and the family.

And family, yes.

See?

Good K. I always like my parishioner's K. So a member of our congregation to remember what we've been preaching about.

So.

And so as we're understanding this political movement, it wants to elevate men over women.

That's part of it, yes.

Well, I would say that's part of it.

You know, there's three different real strains of Christian nationalism, and they're kind of different from one another.

There's the strain that kind of comes to us from our Puritan fathers, kind of a reform, like they call it Reconstruction that is very much like the culture needs to be all Old Testament, reflect all the laws of the Old Testament.

So everything that is given as rules and all the things the Christian church and the culture needs to reflect that.

And that is very much like men in charge, women and all that.

Now, there is another movement which we talked about last Sunday, the New Apostolic Reformation, which is a very different kind of tradition.

It's very highly Pentecostal.

And it really believes, like anybody who feels they're called to give these messages that wind together with the spiritual warfare that the New Apostolic Reformation believes is going on, which is essentially Republicans versus Democrats and all that sort of thing.

There's a lot of women in the New Apostolic Reformation that have a lot of power in that.

And they may not be so much the traditional family structures.

But there's so.

But it's still twisted.

And then there's the Catholic version, which I'm not exactly sure how that.

The Catholic, kind of spiritual, Pentecostal version that JD Vance is more kind of in part of.

And I don't know how that particular strain, you know, there's like the Pete Hegseth strain that is very much like Doug Wilson and the stratification of society.

Then you have the Paula White strain, which is to highlight who she is.

She's the president's personal advisor.

She's also chair of the faith department, and she's in charge of this new.

This policy group that is looking into.

Now, that phrase religious liberty means that the Christian church is free to have control over the government, or like post.

The Ten Commandments in the school.

Yeah, that's what I mean, that the church is free to put its demands on the government as opposed to the government is not free to pose its reflection of the church.

And that means very, very Christian.

Yeah.

But it is clear that the founders of our country intended people to not be subject to religious persecution.

People were to escape that.

Yeah, yeah.

And that the government was not going to have a religion.

And we had the separation of church.

Absolutely.

But, you know, like with everything, once a movement is successful in a place, it gets more and more like an institution and gets more conservative.

And so you just start seeing cracks in all these noble ideas.

And so, yeah, I think the founding fathers would be aghast at what's going on, just as the Puritans, who oftentimes are blamed for a lot of this, they would probably be aghast at what's going on, too.

They really just wanted their own community to be this very strict Christian.

They weren't looking to make the whole world that, you know, what are some.

Of the ways that Christian nationalism differs from the faith that you practice and that we know.

You know, one thing that's really interesting is that there are a lot of what we might think of as really conservative denominations that we might say, like, oh, we're nothing like that.

Like the Southern Baptist Convention like United Methodists, we consider ourselves much more progressive.

We don't look at the Bible, we don't take the Bible as literal truth.

Most of us, we see it in a much different way.

But it's interesting that the SBC is just as against Christian nationalism as these more.

And the Assemblies of God, which is a more denominational Pentecostal church, because the idea is that when you start, you know, demanding people follow a certain religion, it takes away your freedom to choose that God.

And that's really what so much of evangelical Christianity is like choosing to be born again, choosing Jesus.

And it puts.

It's an idolatry.

It's like you're now worshiping the state and its dictates and not Jesus.

So there's.

So that's a very interesting theological.

Like how different strains come together.

But that's a big thing, is the idea that you're mandated about what you're gonna believe.

And then, of course, that's all decided by the people at the top who find whatever you're worshiping to behest their capacity to be in control of the culture.

And that's just not the way spirituality works.

I mean, you can put laws down, but it's never gonna bring your faith to life.

And that's what the Founding Fathers realized.

You have to give everybody a freedom to worship God as they want, otherwise it's going to be meaningless practice.

What are some of the ways that Christian nationalism is harming people, is affecting people's lives?

Well, you know, it's kind of being used too, as a bit of a Trojan horse and allowing a lot of corruption in the government because they're letting the Christian nationalists have their way about eroding the separation of church and state.

And so there's, you know, all the corruption that's going on in Washington.

You know, the Christian nationalist leaders just kind of look the other way because it's a, you know, deal with the devils, I might say, you know, that the two of them are having with one another.

So I think that is.

I've been reading a really interesting book and perhaps you want to talk about this soon.

How about.

Christian nationalism is also kind of a bit of a Trojan host for the Tech Bros. And how they're actually working to take over our culture.

And they're using the authoritarianism of Christian nationalism and the way that that draws people in to get their policies moved ahead.

Then you find other people like Senator Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy Jr. And all the typical more conservative political policies around freedom to choose when it comes to your women's health care.

And, you know, like.

And so black.

Black healthcare has really taken a hit.

You know, rural healthcare.

I mean, anything that has to do with, like, any way the government's helping with health care, like, that's all getting slashed.

So there's just not as much unless you can really afford it.

You know, healthcare, that's like another.

There's an underlying strain of racism.

Oh, yeah.

The elevation of white people over people of color.

Yeah.

I think.

I think where it's a different.

It's like in these Pentecostal strains, it's a little more.

You know, there's a lot of Hispanic.

I mean, Hispanic people.

There's a huge percentage of Hispanic people that call themselves Christian nationalists as well.

And one of the greatest of the NAR people is a guy from Korea.

And so there's a little bit more than that, than just white people, but that is certainly one major part of it, I would say.

How about persecution of lgbtq?

Yeah, that's kind of all the way across the board, because the bi.

You know, because all of it is about taking this Bible absolutely literally.

And so any of those clobber passages that are in the Bible, there's no denying what that is.

You know, but of course, there's no.

There's also, like, give all your possessions away and give to the poor.

Like, those get kind of lost, you know?

You know, as we've talked about, there are hundreds or dozens if not more than a hundred references in the Bible to how we're to treat immigrants and strangers and.

Yeah.

People in our midst.

Sure.

Both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

And if people in Christian nationalism were embracing that, we certainly would not have the current immigration policy.

That's true.

But there's also deportation policy.

That's very true.

Now, there's also, though, this section of the Old Testament in Ezra and Nehemiah where the exiles get to come home.

And that's really a story that's very big in the Christian nationalism.

Self understanding, the idea of, like, we were in bondage.

And then this great emperor Cyrus, who was a.

And he was a real guy, and he was considered very enlightened, and he knew that his conquered people would be more willing to just follow him as their emperor if he let all the refugees go back and they conform, be there in their temple.

And worship as they want.

He even gave them money to build their temple.

And so they came to see, and they have come now to see that Christian nationalist as President Trump as the new king, Cyrus, who is like, who is not.

He's not a faith believer, he's, you know, gentile, but he's the one that's bringing them all home to reconstitute the society that was left.

And one of the big things they want to do in the biblical world in Ezra and Nehemiah is go back to making Israel great again, making Judah great again, which means getting rid of all the foreigners that had been living there, intermarrying with kind of the poor Israelites who were not taken away.

So there's all been all this intermarriage and children and all that back in Israel.

And when they come back, that's when Ezra and Nehemiah, they come pronounce these, these things that all the foreigners need to leave now.

So there's a whole, like, family separation that takes place in the Bible that is very much leaned on by Christian nationalists to say, well, maybe welcome the stranger.

But look at, like, to have the culture that we need to have, we need to get rid of everybody that's not like us.

And, and that was, of course, very.

That's also criticized in the Bible.

You see stories like the story of Ruth, which I preached on, the story of Jonah, and then ultimately, I think the Gospel of Jesus that is speaking out against this very strict, you know, this racism that's taking place and this lack of welcoming the neighbor, the lack of welcoming the neighbor either to your country or for Jesus, it was lack of welcoming to.

Into the temple.

But there is that conversation that goes on.

So this kind of cruelty doesn't come out of nowhere in terms of the Bible, unfortunately.

Unfortunately, yeah.

But I think it's important for folks to know that there are these, like, so much in the Bible.

It's always in dialogue with itself.

And that's a very big topic of conversation, I think, in the Bible.

So what do you recommend that people do to push back against this trend toward Christian nationalism?

Well, first of all, I think we need to vote so that we vote for those who are for the separation of church and state that are for the ability of people to choose how they want to worship or not.

I think that's really important.

It's important to remember that as Matthew D. Taylor, who's one of the great, one of the scholars about all this, he just says all these ideas are fringe ideas and they've Been around for a long time, these very extreme ideas about Christianity in the state.

But he says now the fringe has become the rug.

And I think that's an interesting thing to say, but they're all fringe ideas.

They're not what a majority of people that are church people, but most people don't understand what's going on.

And I think it's really important for us to not, as I'm always saying at church, let's not become what we condemn.

You know, we can't just look at Christian nationalists and judge them and, you know, they're all bad and we're all better and, you know, all that sort of thing.

We have to kind of understand what leads them, a lot of them, to be thinking the way they are and to try to have conversations as we can to understand better, you know, why if our friends and neighbors are thinking some of these things, like why they believe what they believe and just to have conversations.

Because I think that's always, you know, to talk to people in love, but to speak truth to power at the same time, you know, you gotta do both and to learn more about what Christian nationalism is all about.

Because in a lot of ways, our country has had Christian nationalism as part of our culture since the beginning.

You know, the Louisiana Purchase is basically a product of the idea that God has a special.

A special dream for the Christians in America.

And a lot of that has to do with getting as much land as possible.

And it doesn't really matter that we're taking it from, you know, people who are already here that didn't.

They believed that God was on their side.

And, you know, that really is the reason that a lot of America was settled, was this.

It was a very Christian nationalist idea.

So these things have been going on.

I think it was more accepted by the whole culture back then, but we've moved into a much different place now, more secular society and with an awareness of the dangers of what that kind of attitude can have.

And I think there is and should be a continued work on reconciliation with groups that have been harmed by these Christian nationalist ideas and seeing where all that.

I think that's one of those things I always like to say, like, if Jesus were in a grave right now, he'd be rolling over it when he sees what's happened to the people, things to his name.

But I think that would not cause Jesus to roll over in his grave.

And there's lots of great books that are out now talking about Christian nationalism.

What books do you recommend?

Well, this is actually a book that we're doing a little book study for.

It's called for such a time as this, an emergency devotional.

And this is not so much about Christian nationalism, but it's how we can fight against it.

These are like getting the resilience, the inner resilience.

And there's a little devotional each day.

And the gal that writes this book, Hannah Rachel, she's a professor at Princeton, she's from Germany.

Not everybody did that.

There was a small slice of church, the Confessing Church, where like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the like were part of.

But so she kind of talks about kind of ways that we can, as faith people stand up for what we believe and not get swept away or get undone by the anger and the chaos and everything and American Dominion.

That's another really good book.

It's by a young gal.

I can't think of her name right now, but you can go to Google and find all the.

And just look around.

There's actually so many books and it's really good to be educated because it's not really the only, as I've said, there's all these other strains of what's going on right now that are trying to just take over control of our culture and our government.

The religious one is through Christian nationalism and there's a lot of others as well.

So it's just good to kind of be up on as much of this stuff as possible and be aware that the strategy is to keep us all like spinning and what's next and what's the next shiny squirrel and forgetting what is the real deal and all that.

So we just have to keep breathing, keep praying, keep knowing that love wins.

Always got to remember that and see how that all's going to play out as playing out.

In the United States today, we see that Christian nationalism is a really conservative right wing political movement that's trying to take over basically all of society.

There's a lot of pushback and hopefully this won't be happening anytime soon.

The founders of our country clearly intended for us to have freedom of religion.

And that's one of the things that we're fighting to protect.

Getting out of this mess takes a movement and it begins with awareness.

Increasing awareness is what we're attempting to do to expose the threats and the harms of Christian nationalism.

And we invite you to Join us in that movement on United America Network.

Join us again on Democracy on Fire, on UAN or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for listening and watching.