We’re about two weeks out from the theatrical release of God & Country, the documentary based on Katherine Stewart’s book The Power Worshippers. I’m curious whether the response to the actual film will be anything like the response to the trailer.
It’s been a wild ride already.
Initial pushback to the trailer was fierce, particularly among those with Christian nationalist proclivities themselves. The purported reason for the outrage was the involvement of Rob Reiner as executive producer. My favorite example in this genre was Andrew Walker’s post.
That’s right, those of us who participated in the documentary are apparently on par with those who partnered with Caligula to persecute the faithful. What makes this take all the more absurd was that Walker—a professor of ethics at SBTS, the SBC’s flagship seminary—posted this in the aftermath of Paul Pressler’s settlement over allegations of decades-long sex abuse. For those who don’t know their SBC history, Pressler was one of the two architects (along with Paige Patterson, also disgraced) of the “conservative resurgance"/fundamentalist takeover of the SBC in the 1970s and 1980s. Walker and other SBC leaders had nothing to say about Pressler and his abuses. Not a word. But they apparently thought it was a good time to come out swinging against those of us who coincidentally also happen to be some of the most prominent voices calling for reform inside institutions like the SBC on the issue of sexual abuse.
I doubt I was the primary target of Walker’s ire. I’m fairly certain his former friend and colleague Russell Moore, as well as fellow conservative “traitor” David French, were his real targets. Over on Threads, I suggested that the real problem wasn’t our affilition with Reiner. (It’s hard to believe that the likes of Walker would have embraced the film had it only been produced by someone else.) His problem is with us. Reiner was just the most convenient tool for the latest smear campaign. French made clear that he will partner with all kinds in his effort to call out the dangers to our democracy, and I’m in the same camp.
Which is why it was also funny/not funny to be hit from the other side this week.
Over at Religion Dispatches, Chrissy Stroop critiqued the film not for persecuting Christians and making them look bad, but for quite the opposite:
I wanted to like it in spite of the trailer’s focus on the ostensible “threat” of Christian nationalism to Christianity itself, a framing I’ve consistently objected to because the equation of “Christian” with “good” is false and harmful to both religious minorities and the nonreligious.
Stroop concedes that while “whitewashing Christianity” was probably not director Dan Partland’s “primary goal, it is certainly the film’s primary impact.” Stroop calls out Moore and French in particular for being allowed “the cheap grace to distance themselves from their Christian nationalist coreligionists without interrogating the authoritarian aspects of their own theology.”
I am sympathetic to this critique. (One of the best presentations of this problem is an article published a few years back at Religion Dispatches, Timothy Gloege’s #ItsNotUs: Being Evangelical Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry. (I just discussed this with my students last week.)
Stroop is appreciative of the historical insights I bring to the documentary, but I also do not come out unscathed. According to Stroop, I, too, am “at pains to distance Christian nationalism from Christianity, which distracts from their valuable historical analysis.” She makes this claim because, when asked by the filmmakers how I, as a Christian, understand my faith in ways that run counter to Christian nationalism, I answered them.
It would be easy to say that because I’m getting hit from the Right and the Left, I must be getting things just right. But that’s the easy way out. Maybe they’re both right and I’m wrong on both counts?
There is much that could be said in response to Walker’s critique (and much I’ve already said to similar critiques), but I’d recommend reading T. Wyatt Reynold’s wonderful essay “Historians Behaving Badly.” Here’s a taste:
In light of this understanding of history, we might ask ourselves, what is the job of the historian amidst the mess of the past? The entire task of the historian might be summed up as the means by which a historian tries to come as close to facts from the past as possible in order to create a plausible narrative in such a way as to make sense to contemporary readers.[4] Or to follow my earlier metaphor, historians act as both a librarian and a translator. They know their way through and around the mess, and they can help you, the reader, find volumes amidst the chaos which you can understand, and will hopefully lead you further into the grand, confused masterpiece that is the past. The problem, from historians’ perspective, is that there are intruders in the library, who rather than asking the staff for assistance, have taken volumes produced by careful translating with which they have built a campfire while replacing those volumes with ones they have written themselves without working hard at the project of translation. As one of my mentors, David Blight has written, “We all have some narrative of who we are and where we come from. Many people do not want their favored narratives disrupted by the critical tools of professional historians. But disrupt them we must.”
But how does a Christian historian fulfill this vocation and “disrupt favored narratives”? Psalm 78 gives us a concrete description: “utter dark sayings from of old… to our children… that they should not be like their ancestors.” The psalm meanders through the history of the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt through at least the splitting of the kingdoms. The psalmist in poetic form gives us a history of the nation. The psalmist is forthright in attacking both those who do evil to Israel and the wayward Israelites themselves. There are no excuses made for why evil was done. Remember, the goal is that our children might do better than our parents. This challenge requires an uncomfortable honesty in how we tell stories, our own and our forebears.[5] This may make some readers uncomfortable. The Psalmist clearly is exhibiting a bias in his historical writing–a bias against those of the past from what could be called a presentist perspective. However, this is clearly necessary. If we are to teach future generations to be steadfast in the faith, as the psalmist demands, we must be direct and unapologetic in our critique of those who have gone before us while not ignoring or downplaying that which is virtuous.
Hopefully, then I have convinced you that judgment is as much part of the historian’s job as the prophets of old. How might we best carry out this judgment? I grew up in the South, and my mother taught me that you always get more bees with honey than with vinegar. The historian’s job though is not to attract bees. Indeed, many times the work of the historian will be distasteful to the very ones who should be learning from it….
Part of the problem that many evangelicals have found with historians (going back to my own childhood) is that they “rewrite” history. Of course, to some extent, this is true of every history ever written. If a truly objective take on a set of events were possible, then the Bible would not include four gospels or the books of Chronicles and Kings with their diverging accounts. The problem that really seems to be bothering us when we fret about rewriting is that we are changing around heroes and villains. Several recent attacks opine that history now is written by activists. Of course, history has always been written by activists, but activists for what? Historians have always been shaped by their own stories and beliefs in what they write….
What would I say to Stroop’s critique? I think she’s right, that far too many evangelicals have failed to reckon with their own complicity, and that arguing that Christianity is inherently good and can only be good allows them to duck responsibility for all sorts of historical and social ills.
That said, I’ve consistently argued that one can (and must) talk about Christianity in its historical manifestations, while also maintaining space for Christians themselves to offer a theological critique of fellow Christians.
I explain the difference here:
So, is white Christian nationalism real Christianity, or is it a distortion of true Christianity?
Both, depending who’s asking and who’s answering….
As a historian of American Christianity, there’s an easy answer:
Yes, this is American Christianity.
White Christian privilege was woven into the very fabric of our nation from its very inception. Slaveholder Religion is real, and it has a powerful hold on how many American Christians understand and live out their faith. Moreover, before America came into existence, Christianity had been wedded to imperial power for well over a millennium.
Which isn’t to say that this is the whole of American Christianity. To insist that it is, is to erase the many expressions of Christianity that have contested this particular form of Christianity. Consider, for example, the prophetic tradition that has characterized much of African American Christianity across the centuries. Nor is it the whole of global Christianity. As a historian, it isn’t difficult to acknowledge that both of these things are true….
It is important to note, however, that this isn’t just a conversation among historians. It’s also a conversation among Christians, and that internal conversation is an important one. This is the “matter of theological debate” that I refer to in my tweet. For Christians, it is appropriate, even necessary, to make a case for which version of Christianity is closer to what we hold to be the defining truths of our faith tradition….
…critics have good reason to push back against the assertion that white Christian nationalism isn’t “real Christianity.” This sets up a No True Scotsman fallacy in which only things that are good and lovely count as “Christian,” which ends up bolstering Christians’ sense of their own purity and innocence, priming Christians to accept false narratives of victimization, and in powerful but often subtle ways reinforcing Christian supremacy.
That said, one can point out that white Christian nationalism isn’t the entirety of Christianity, or of American Christianity, or of white American Christianity, without participating in Christian supremacist propaganda, even if at times this claim can function in that way. Pointing these things out is also an accurate representation of history, and of contemporary Christianity.
Moreover, rather than shielding Christianity from blame, pointing out that not all Christians hold to these values can also play a strategic role in challenging the ideology of white Christian nationalism.
Christian nationalists generally assume that their version of white Christian nationalism is Christianity, and thus see any critique of white Christian nationalism as an attack on Christianity itself. This is a powerful way in which they mobilize other Christians, including those who may not themselves be “ambassadors” of Christian nationalism, to use terminology devised by Perry and his co-author Andrew Whitehead in their Taking America Back for God. For this audience in particular, the distinction can be critical, and it is a distinction that needs to be made publicly if one wishes to disrupt the power of white Christian nationalists to define the terms.
At a time when many Christians have been told that Christianity is under attack, it can be crucial for scholars, and for Christians, to disrupt this narrative. As I understand it, this was Sam Perry’s point in noting that many who hold to what would be considered “orthodox Christianity” in fact reject the central tenets of Christian nationalism. For those who wish to combat Christian nationalism, this can be a strategic move. (See, for instance, the name of an organization such as Christians Against Christian Nationalism.)
Stroop may be right that bringing both into the same film is confusing. Given her own framework, I can see where it was. To be honest, I was surprised when the filmmakers started asking me about my own faith. I actually paused the interview to ask what they were doing, because Stewart’s book is not framed as “Christians against Christian nationalism” in any way. But when they explained their reasons, that it’s important to not present the rejection of Christian nationalism as a rejection of Christianity and all Christians, I agreed. What I “took pains” to do in my interview was to draw a sharp distinction between when I was speaking as a historian, and when I was speaking as a Christian, not authoritatively for all Christians, but personally, sharing how I understand my faith and my role as a citizen in a democracy. Not all of this was included in the documentary, which is understandable. (My interview was 2-3 hours and they probably used less than 2-3 minutes, which is standard.)
For the record, I think it’s fine to deal with each separately, but I think it’s also appropriate to present both at the same time, and that it’s possible to do so without cancelling one or the other out. Not only is it accurate to do so, but failing to do so can also play into the hands of Christian nationalists themselves.
But take a look at the documentary yourself. It releases February 16, and you can see where it’s playing here or request your local theater to consider bringing it to town.
On a side note, another director I’ve worked with reached out today to let me know that that documentary, Postcards from Babylon: The Church in American Exile (in the Christians against Christian nationalism genre), is available free on YouTube right now. It features people like me, Shane Claiborne, Brian Zahnd, Walter Brueggemann, Lisa Sharon Harper, Pete Wehner, and others.
Also, a quick shoutout to Steven Inskeep for a nice mention of Jesus and John Wayne on Morning Edition last week in his excellent interview with Robert Jones. Kudos to Inskeep for his impeccable pronunciation of my name, every time.
I’ll update again soon with upcoming events (in North Carolina and Florida), but right now I have to run to class.
Sometimes you step into the arena knowing you can’t win, but that the struggle is still worth the effort. Thank you for consistently walking through the tunnel into the fray! We love you.
Thank you for all your hard work.