News Weekly Round-Up, April 15th – 19th
News Weekly Round-Up, April 15th – 19th, 2024.
The Weekly Roundup is a student-led initiative of the Meanings of Democracy Lab highlighting the latest news about Christian Nationalism and resistance to it.
- SaltLakeCityTribune: Pat Bagley Christian Nationalism Cartoon
- ChristianPost: Scholar with Family Research Council (FRC) criticizes New Haven Declaration
- TheHumanist: National Day of Reason is on May 4th, continues America’s original efforts towards a secular democracy
- The Conversation: Comparison to Reagan’s religious references in office to Trump’s Christian Nationalism Strategies
- Julie Roys: Southern Baptists are pulling away from the idea of a Christian Nation
- Baptist News: More reporting on the results from a new Lifeway Research survey on faith and politics relating to Southern Baptists and Christian Nationalism
- ReligionUnplugged: Education on CN is dire; learning how CN fuels things like churches and the January 6th riot.
- AnaBaptistWorld: At Yale, Christian pastors sign a declaration opposing religious nationalism ahead of the 2024 election.
- EBar: A gay Baptist minister helps in the fight against CN that seeks to exclude LGBTQ people.
- AmericansUnited: Summit for Religious Freedom calls out CN as a threat
Check out last week’s round-up!
News Weekly Round-up April 8th-12th
News Weekly Round-Up, April 8th – 12th, 2024.
The Weekly Roundup is a student-led initiative of the Meanings of Democracy Lab highlighting the latest news about Christian Nationalism and resistance to it.
CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM IN THE NEWS
- SaltLakeTribune: Trump endorses “God Bless the USA Bible,” a book that combines the King James Version w/ US Constitution and Declaration of Independence
- JulieRoys: Yale Christian Pastor signs Declaration opposing religious nationalism
- BaptistNews: Being able to identify the warning signs of Christian Nationalism, as opposed to White evangelicalism
- NBC24: Michael Flynn, former Trump insider, is using harmful Christian Nationalist rhetoric to describe American politics
- ChristianPost: Interview with Jonathan Falwell weighs in on “good” vs “bad” Christian Nationalism
- ChristianPost: A group of self-described ‘religious leaders’ denounces ‘religious nationalism’ by signing a declaration at the Yale Divinity School’s Center for Public Theology and Policy
- ReligionUnplugged: Religious and political leaders across the spectrum warn against Christian Nationalism and its involvement in politics and Trumpism
- TheNation: Faith leaders sign “New Haven Declaration” which is a call to reject Christian Nationalism
- FaV: Expressing the serious ramifications of a Christian nationalist state and the statistics that say we are leaning that way
The Pluralist Resistance Twitter List
Looking to keep up with the latest news on Christian Nationalism? There is so much incredible work being done in the ecosystem of reporting and resistance efforts, our Twitter list is an amazing place to start! It brings together the insights of experts, authors, community leaders, organizations, and more to help you stay informed. Follow us on social media @USDemocracyLab and search our hashtag #PluralistResistance.
Looking to go deeper? Check out our Pluralist Resistance Syllabus. And if you’re looking for other content, be sure to check out our YouTube playlist!
NOTE: This is a working list, and we invite you to submit suggestions for additions to Dr. Ruth Braunstein at ruth.braunstein@uconn.edu.
News Weekly Round-up April 1st-5th
News Weekly Round-Up, April 1st – 5th, 2024.
The Weekly Roundup is a student-led initiative of the Meanings of Democracy Lab highlighting the latest news about Christian Nationalism and resistance to it.
CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM IN THE NEWS
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MotherJones: Steve and Tracy Slepcevic, far-right extremists tied to Christian Nationalists and QAnoners, hosted a fundraiser for independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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BostonGlobe: Trump launches his campaign targeted at Christian Nationalists to “Make America Pray Again”
- Variety: “The followers of Christian Nationalism want a theocracy. Stephen Ujlaki and Christopher Jacob Jones’s chilling film suggests that another Trump presidency could help them get it.”
- CNN: Politics of religion – Trump “flirting” with Christian Nationalism and Biden criticized for being a “cafeteria Catholic”
- Beacon: New book by Robert P. Jones exposes disturbing links to Christian Nationalism and White Supremacy
- WashingtonTimes: ‘Christ is King’ slogan is being hijacked by the alt-right
- Truthout: The Poor People’s campaign is working to give poverty a seat in politics, with an emphasis on religion in their work and fighting Christian nationalism
- MSNBC: Morning Joe interview with Jim Wallis to discuss new book on rejecting Christian Nationalism
- MSNBC: Trump criticized for getting too wrapped into a Christian Nationalist shtick
The Pluralist Resistance YouTube Playlist
As our team works to build a comprehensive database of the groups and leaders combatting (White) Christian Nationalism, we have compiled a YouTube playlist of videos created by those involved in this effort. Many of the videos feature experts on Christian nationalism in the US and discuss how people are working to resist its influence nationally and in local communities.
Looking to go deeper? Check out our Pluralist Resistance Syllabus.
NOTE: This is a working playlist, and we invite you to submit suggestions for additions to Dr. Ruth Braunstein at ruth.braunstein@uconn.edu.
Resistance to Christian Nationalism profiled in UConn Today
Director Ruth Braunstein talked to UConn Today about the Meanings of Democracy Lab’s new project mapping the growing field of resistance to Christian Nationalism in the United States. Thanks to a new $300,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, Braunstein will scale up this work through a podcast and interactive web platform where users can explore various resistance efforts.
The spread of Christian Nationalism is a source of bipartisan concern in American politics today, as it undermines the country’s foundational commitment to religious pluralism. As the UConn Today article explains:
Though [Braunstein] notes the country has not always lived up to its pluralistic ideals, she believes these ideals call Americans to create “a democracy where people of all religious faiths and no religious faiths are welcome to live in the way they choose — and not just welcome, but also part of the group of people who get to create that society.”
Americans across the partisan divide and across religious communities believe in this vision, and they increasingly voicing concern about the influence of Christian Nationalism on US politics. Braunstein observes, “As Christian nationalism was gaining power and influence in American politics, it was also unleashing a wave of resistance.”
The project is the first of its kind to try to map this field of resistance, which:
include[s] the “usual suspects” — “liberal religious groups, legal defense groups” — who have been resisting Christian nationalism for decades, “but also include[s] some new actors, including many conservative white Christians who were concerned about what Christian nationalism meant for both American democracy and American Christianity.”
Follow us online and @USDemocracyLab for the latest updates on the project.
Grant funding for this project comes from the Henry Luce Foundation’s Religion and Theology Program, through an initiative seeking to “Advance Public Knowledge on Democracy, Race and Religion in America.”
The Henry Luce Foundation seeks to deepen knowledge and understanding in pursuit of a more democratic and just world. Established in 1936 by Henry R. Luce, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time, Inc., the Luce Foundation advances its mission by nurturing knowledge communities and institutions, fostering dialogue across divides, enriching public discourse, amplifying diverse voices, and investing in leadership development.
Coming Soon: Profiles in Resistance
Well, that’s a wrap on Fall 2023. This semester has flown by, but the Pluralist Resistance to Christian Nationalism team here at the Meanings of Democracy Lab has gotten a huge amount of work done, and we are looking forward to sharing more with you in the coming months.
In addition to our work compiling a database of organizations resisting Christian Nationalism in the US today and developing a Pluralist Resistance Syllabus for interested readers, each member of the research team has selected one organization to be the subject of a profile focusing specifically on their efforts to resist CN.
We will be rolling out these Profiles in Resistance in the new year, and hope you will follow along as we do so. In the meantime, please be in touch with suggestions of other organizations or leaders whose work we should be following.
Speaker Mike Johnson and the Influence of Christian Nationalism
Last month, Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana replaced Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House of Representatives, making him third in line to the Presidency. Since his election, experts have weighed in on the role religion plays in the Speaker’s life and political views, and his embrace of many ideas associated with White Christian Nationalism.
Last week, Meanings of Democracy Lab Director Dr. Ruth Braunstein contributed to this conversation with a focus on the Speaker’s longtime concerns about Christian persecution, and how a mounting sense of embattlement has contributed to the radicalization of many white evangelical Christians in the US.
Mike Johnson embodies evangelicals’ embattlement strategy. It may be backfiring, by Ruth Braunstein
Interested in learning more? We’ve curated 10 additional articles featuring experts on religion and politics diving deeper into who Johnson is and why this matters. (more…)
The Pluralist Resistance Syllabus
As our team begins its work to build a comprehensive database of the groups and leaders combatting (White) Christian Nationalism, we have compiled a list of books that are part of this effort. Some of these have been written by groups and leaders engaged in this work. Others are referenced in public discussions about the dangers of WCN for American democracy and Christianity. Finally, others are academic texts that expand our understanding of the history and current nature of WCN in the US.
NOTE: This is a working document, and we invite you to submit suggestions for additions to Dr. Ruth Braunstein at ruth.braunstein@uconn.edu.
The Syllabus
(Alphabetical by author last name – last update: March 22, 2024)
Brockschmidt, Annika. 2021. Amerikas Gotteskrieger: Wie Die Religiöse Rechtedie Demokratie Gefährdet. Originalausgabe ed. Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag.
Braunstein, Ruth. 2017. Prophets and Patriots: Faith in Democracy Across the Political Divide. Oakland, California: University of California Press.
Butler, Anthea D. 2021. White Evangelical Racism. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Columbia Law School. 2020. All Faiths & None: A Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty For Everyone. Auburn.
(more…)
Who is the Pluralist Resistance? Criteria for inclusion
This semester our team is starting to build a comprehensive database of the groups and leaders working to combat (White) Christian Nationalism. We call this loosely defined set of groups and leaders the Pluralist Resistance.
We define this field broadly, recognizing that this work is happening across numerous institutional fields; across party lines; across religious, racial and other social divides; and from the local to the transnational level.
Nonetheless, in an effort to create some boundaries around the field, we have identified five criteria for inclusion. Efforts need to fulfill at least one in order to be considered part of this field. (more…)