Looking ahead: an Independence Day edition

Also, why is AI Jesus such a smoke show?

In honor of next week’s high holy day of Christian nationalism, today’s post offers a number of resources addressing faith and politics, Christian nationalism, and the choices before us in this election season.

Fresh off the presses, Scott Coley’s Ministers of Propaganda: Truth, Power, and the Ideology of the Religious Right makes so much sense of so many things. Some of you may know Scott from Twitter/X for his incisive takes. He bring his philosopher’s scalpel to expose evangelical rhetoric and practices as tools of propaganda propping up right-wing politics.

The book is hard-hitting and funny, pointing to the absurdity of it all in ways that restore one’s sense of sanity. Here’s my endorsement:

Bringing a philosophical scalpel to evangelical truth claims, Scott Coley demonstrates with devastating precision how much of what passes as ‘biblical’ can better be understood as propaganda, as the deliberate obfuscation of reality in the interest of propping up self-serving hierarchies of authority and submission. Witty, hard-hitting, and engaging, this book is for those already alarmed by evangelicals’ authoritarian proclivities, but also for evangelicals themselves, for those genuinely invested in pursuing what is good and true.

When it comes to Christian nationalism, white evangelicals are always the stars of the show and take the brunt of the heat. There is good reason for this. In every survey, white evangelicals top the charts. But the understandable interest in white evangelical politics can distract from the prevalance of these ideas throughout American Christianity—in the mainline and in American Catholicism. A few months ago, I wrote about Lerone Martin’s God and the FBI, which provides a powerful history of Christian nationalism in twentieth century mainline churches. Now, Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood have released an important new book: Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism. You may know the authors from their popular Substack A Public Witness. For those who find themselves in mainline churches and for anyone thinking through the proper relationships between church and state and how Christians might best approach the political realm, this book will give much food for thought.

Another brand new book is Rev. William Barber’s and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s White Poverty: How Exposing Myths about Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy.

From the publisher:

One of the most pernicious and persistent myths in the United States is the association of Black skin with poverty. Though there are forty million more poor white people than Black people, most Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, continue to think of poverty―along with issues like welfare, unemployment, and food stamps―as solely a Black problem. Why is this so? What are the historical causes? And what are the political consequences that result?…

Ultimately, White Poverty, a ringing work that braids poignant autobiographical recollections with astute historical analysis, contends that tens of millions of America’s poorest earners, the majority of whom don’t vote, have much in common, thus providing us with one of the most empathetic and visionary approaches to American poverty in decades.

If reading isn’t your thing, we have movies! Many of you came out to see God & Country viewings across the country last winter. I’m happy to report that the film is now available for viewing on all major platforms.

If you’ve already seen God & Country, I’d strongly recommend taking a look at Bad Faith:

BAD FAITH reveals how Christian Nationalist leaders have spread fear and anger for decades, distorting political issues into Biblical battles between good and evil. Financed through the secretive Council for National Policy, Christian Nationalists have succeeded in taking over the Republican Party, turning it into a powerful weapon to demolish democracy from within. Discover the origins of this organized grasp for power and the grassroots coalition of secular and interfaith leaders bravely confronting the unholy forces threatening democracy.

Hosting a screening is a great way to foster conversations in your church or community. Here’s info on how to do that with Bad Faith. Hosting screeings is also a good way to support the production of these films. (With very few exceptions, most documentaries don’t make much if any money, so hosting screenings is a wonderful way to spread the word and support filmmakers working in this area, and sending a signal to producers and platforms that creating and distributing these films is a worthwhile investment.)

On the topic of documentaries and screenings, I’ll have some exciting news for you very soon on a project I’ve been keeping under wraps. Stay tuned…

Another excellent resource is a podcast I’ve been listening to lately, Warren Throckmorton’s Telling Jefferson Lies.

It’s one of the best overviews of Christian nationalism I’ve come across. I think I like it so much because rather than taking a social scientific approach, breaking down survey information and parsing definitions, the podcast takes you back in history to show how evangelicals created the myth of Christian America that has proven impervious to factual critique. If you have the time, start listening at the beginning and you’ll see how, layer upon layer, we’ve ended up where we are. It’s an especially good resource to share and discuss with those who may be influenced by calls to restore a “Christian America.” It’s patient, informative, at times entertaining, and respectful of conservative beliefs. (Throckmorton and his co-author Michael Coulter are both Christians and longtime faculty members at Grove City College.)

On a personal note, I’ve given a number of interviews on a range of topics over the past couple of weeks. Some of the more interesting ones involve trying to explain US religion and politics to the French media (both print and television), and talking with NPR’s Danielle Kurtzleben on the evergreen topic of masculinity and politics.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite recent interviews, chatting with the Atlantic’s Caroline Mimbs Nyce to address the question on everybody’s minds: Why on earth does AI present the son of God as such a smoke show?

With that, I wish you all a happy Independence Day and hope that you might be inspired to find what you can do to protect and preserve that independence.