White evangelicals' jeremiad on DC tours

Most religions exhort their followers to leave their evil/non-religious ways to move to a better future both on earth and hereafter. The religious narrative links the current woes to not accepting and adhering to religious edicts and cautions that if the people did not mend their ways, they will be replaced and/or destroyed. The unpleasant and unsatisfactory present is set between a cherished past and a glorious future. There is a call to return to the right path to avoid catastrophe. There are lamentations remembering the paradise lost in contrast to the dark present, and sorrow, despair, and grief are the main themes. Prophet Jeremiah and the Book of Lamentations are possibly the best expressions of this reoccurring religious theme.

Harvard researcher, Lauren Kerby, has written a book on how White evangelicals' tours to Washington DC help revive, support, and confirm the "Christian-origins" of the United States. Unsurprisingly, these tours strengthen religious nationalism. In an interview with the Harvard Gazette, she summarizes her book,  “Saving History: How White Evangelicals Tour the Nation’s Capital and Redeem a Christian America.”

Kerby points out that these tours, or more specifically tour guides, present white evangelicals as both insiders as well as outsiders:

While I was in D.C., I noticed these two distinct — and contradictory — stories that guides and tourists told about Christianity in the U.S. In what I call the insider narrative, they claim that America is a Christian nation and that they, as Christians, are the rightful leaders of the nation. They argue that American law, for instance, is based in biblical law, and that the founders intended that Christianity would occupy a privileged position in government. 

But they also tell stories about how the nation has abandoned its covenant with the Christian God, causing the United States to experience decline in morality and military power. This is what I call the outsider narrative: a story in which Christians are persecuted and victimized by a secular establishment that wants to erase the nation’s Christian heritage and keep conservative Christians and their values out of government.

Beyond the context of D.C., these two narratives are patterns for how white evangelicals talk about their relationship to the United States. Together, they form a jeremiad, the prophetic call for repentance and return to a past righteous state. And it’s worth noting that one of the most famous slogans of the 21st century follows this exact pattern: Make America Great Again.

Kerby also talks about how white evangelicals imagine themselves playing four roles in the American story depending on what benefits them. Two of these roles (founder and savior) focus on their position as an insider, while the other two (exile and victim) portray them as outsiders and are used to heighten their fears:

An essential part of political strategy is how you position yourself in the story you’re telling. Are you the scrappy underdog? Are you the avatar for tradition? Are you a sympathetic victim? Depending on the circumstances, you’ll probably benefit more from one position than another.

These four roles I identify — founder, exile, victim, and savior — are the different positions white evangelicals take in their political activities. They offer a lot of range, and if one isn’t working, it’s easy to switch to another role. For instance, as founders they can appeal to the authority of George Washington and other Christian leaders in early America to justify things like posting “In God We Trust” in schools. But if, say, something unflattering comes to light about a white evangelical leader, the victim role lets him dismiss it as an attack from anti-Christian forces. It’s a ready-made defense. 

Kerby also explains that her book is about white evangelicals and not all evangelicals as non-white evangelicals do not relate to the American history the same way, and the DC tours, she has written about, did not have many non-white evangelicals in them:

By now, it’s old news that 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. Non-white evangelicals, however, voted against him at a similar rate. Lumping all evangelicals together, as many outlets still do, erases non-white evangelicals. Even when theology is shared across these groups, the political behaviors I’m interested in are distinct. So it’s important to be specific about which subset of evangelicals I’m talking about, and even then, it’s worth noting that white evangelicals are themselves an internally diverse group. There’s enough commonality that we can make generalizations, but there will always be exceptions.  

The other reason I emphasize this group’s whiteness is because I’m talking about their historical relationship to the United States, and race is inextricable from that. White supremacy in the United States means that white evangelicals have enjoyed privileges and safety not granted to non-white communities, evangelical or otherwise. And one of the most distinctive features of Christian heritage tours is the way they highlight white Christians in American history and exclude everyone else. I want to draw attention to that with my word choice, because it shows the entanglement of Christian nationalism with white supremacy. When tourists say “Christian America,” they mean white evangelical America. It’s much narrower than it sounds.

4th of July and American Religious Nationalism

Is the US a Christian nation? Does embracing Christian nationalism part of being a Christian in America? Is the 4th of July a Holy Day?

Angela Denker is a Lutheran pastor in her article "Christian nationalism, the border and Fourth of July church in Dallas" critiques the close link of American nationalism and Christianity. She visits a megachurch on the 4th of July and informs how the 4th of July has become a religious holiday as are many other national holidays in America. How America is worshiped almost as an idol in many churches: 

When I got there for Saturday night worship, I found out that Prestonwood had a big Fourth of July celebration planned for Independence Day. Pastor Jack Graham promised at the beginning of Saturday worship that they’d be “celebrating our freedoms as a country ... and singing patriotic songs,” as well as offering a pastor dunk tank, games and refreshments in the Dallas summer heat.

When I walked in, I noticed that the arena-style worship space that seats 7,000 had been covered with red, white and blue American flag bunting. Flags festooned the stage, and most of the screen designs and backgrounds were red, white, and blue.

As Graham concluded his welcome for the evening service, he said, “We’re going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance, the national anthem and honoring our service members.”

I had not said the Pledge of Allegiance since elementary school, and I could not help but think of the Ten Commandments — ostensibly as influential here as the pledge. The First Commandment, as found in the Book of Exodus, warns against worshipping and pledging allegiance to a flag and not to God, but no one around me seemed to mind, so, feeling a compulsion to conform, I put my hand on my heart and mouthed the words.

We then sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” and sat as the songs for each branch of the armed forces played, and veterans and active-duty soldiers were invited to stand when their branch was called, and we applauded.

The idea of American exceptionalism having a biblical justification is not new, but Prestonwood made it fresh. The church had bright and compelling red, white and blue graphics with retro black-and-white photography, a guest preacher who specializes in travel to the Middle East, and even a special song. The video montage and song came next, followed by the guest speaker. 

Source: Family Research Council

Pastor Denker contrasts this deep entanglement of Christianity and the American state with another view where love of Christ and love for America are at war. She writes about her conversation with Dean Inserra, a prominent conservative evangelical pastor. He is a Liberty University graduate and the founder of City Church in Tallahassee, Florida. He is also an advisory member of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Inserra told me about a term from Southern Baptist theology that describes the current moment in American politics and religion. “In this linking of nationalism and Christianity, we are forgetting about the message of Jesus. ... When we do that, we have a gospel distortion.”

A gospel distortion is the idea that another ideal is impeding the truth of the gospel. Inserra said the gospel distortion in the SBC during and before Trump’s presidency has its roots in Christian nationalism.

“We have to be Christian first. If you are American first, Jesus will be at odds with you,” he said. “Patriotism is not a fruit of the Spirit. It’s idolatry on the Fourth of July.”

Inserra pointed to national holidays that receive as much attention in the SBC as Christmas and Easter. “I say there are different high holy days in the Southern Baptist Church. Some churches have Pentecost and Epiphany. We have the Fourth of July, the Sunday closest to Veterans Day, the Sunday closest to Sept. 11. You go to a Southern Baptist Church on the Fourth of July, you’d think you were at a baseball game, eating a hot dog.”

Ira Stoll, a conservative editor and columnist, argued in his essay, The Theology of the Fourth of July, in Time magazine, that 4th of July is a religious holiday and it was the liberal icon President Kennedy who told us that. Ira quotes three different speeches, including his inaugural address, to prove his point. 

For instance, on July 4, 1946, Kennedy was invited to speak at the City of Boston’s Independence Day celebrations. 

Kennedy began by talking not about taxes, or about the British, or about the consent of the governed, but about religion. “The informing spirit of the American character has always been a deep religious sense. Throughout the years, down to the present, a devotion to fundamental religious principles has characterized American though and action,” he said

Ira contends that even if we ignore Kennedy, there is enough evidence from the founding documents and the founding fathers of America about the nature of the state that was imagined in the early years:

Whatever Kennedy’s motives were as a politician for emphasizing this point, on the historical substance he had it absolutely correct. The Declaration of Independence issued from Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, included four separate references to God. In addition to the “endowed by their Creator” line mentioned by JFK in his July 4 speech, there is an opening salute to “the laws of nature’s God,” an appeal to “the Supreme Judge of the World,” and a closing expression of “firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.”

A signer of the declaration, Samuel Adams, writing to a friend on July 9, wished the declaration had been issued earlier: “If it had been done nine months ago we might have been justified in the sight of God.”

George Washington, announcing the Declaration of Independence to the troops in a General Order dated July 9, wrote, “The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavour to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country….knowing that now the peace and safety of his Country depends (under God) solely on the success of our arms.”

Ira ends his essay by saying that Americans can believe whatever they like but "the idea on which our nation was founded" was clearly religious.

National Conservatism Conference: Two criticisms, one from the right other from the left

National Conservatism Conference was held in Washington DC from 14th to 16th July, 2019. It promoted itself as a timely reorientation, a recognition of change, and/or a return to the original American conservatism that existed before it was taken over by globalists. The conference website explains:

Politics in America, Britain, and other Western nations have taken a sharp turn toward nationalism—a commitment to a world of independent nations. This has been disorienting to many, not least the American conservative movement, which has, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, grown increasingly attached to a vision of a global “rules-based liberal order” that would bring peace and prosperity to the entire world while attenuating the independence of nations.  

The return of nationalism has created a much-discussed “crisis of conservatism” that may be unprecedented since modern Anglo-American conservatism was formulated by Russell Kirk, William Buckley, and their colleagues in the 1950s. At the heart of this crisis is a question: Is the new American and British nationalism a hostile usurper that has arrived on the scene to displace political conservatism? Or is nationalism an essential, if neglected, part of the Anglo-American conservative tradition at its best? 

The conference on “National Conservatism” will bring together public figures, journalists, scholars, and students who understand that the past and future of conservatism are inextricably tied to the idea of the nation, to the principle of national independence, and to the revival of the unique national traditions that alone have the power to bind a people together and bring about their flourishing.

We see this public conference as the kick off for a protracted effort to recover and reconsolidate the rich tradition of national conservative thought as an intellectually serious alternative to the excesses of purist libertarianism, and in stark opposition to political theories grounded in race. Our aim is to solidify and energize national conservatives, offering them a much-needed institutional base, substantial ideas in the areas of public policy, political theory, and economics, and an extensive support network across the country.

 Yoram Hazony is the chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation was the organizer of the conference

Source: National Conservatism (Conference)

Following are two criticisms of the overall conference proceedings, one from Vox and the other from The Federalist. Both criticize the lack of grounding and actual policies presented at the conference. Both point out that  President Trump was mentioned only a few times and his policies were not directly applauded or criticized. 

Andrew Kloster in The Federalist argued that the conference was dominated by neo-conservatives who have lost and are trying to rebrand themselves:

Both the panel (moderated by an American Enterprise Institute fellow, no less) and the keynote represented clear attempts to rehash the same foreign policy hawkishness rejected by huge majorities of Americans on both sides of the aisle, asserted as serving the “national interest.” To call oneself a “realist” or a “nationalist” when promoting regime change in Venezuela, for example, is ludicrous. Americans are not at risk in Venezuela, nor is there treasure or territory for our people to win there... 

Many good Americans, myself included, now realize that we were swindled by Conservative, Inc. during the Bush years. But promoting the same failed policies, and rehabilitating the same failed “experts,” simply because they have rebranded as “national conservatives,” will not advance the American cause. No, Hazony is not the leader we are looking for, and his repackaged neoconservatism is not the unifying principle for a New America. We want neither Athens, nor Jerusalem, but America... 

Overall the entire event fails to cohere, precisely because abstract nationalism and abstract traditionalism fail in the same way liberalism fails: they purport neutrality and ecumenism while surreptitiously importing thick conceptions of the good. Who, precisely, constitutes our nation? Who are Americans? What is America? Hazony never quite says. In this sense, “national conservatism” is ambiguous—is it national, meaning Anglo-American? Or is it national, meaning nation-wide, federal? 

Rather than lauding the particular nation of the Founding—church on Sundays; boisterous Baptism, fastidious Methodism; New Testament mercy; barn raisings; agrarianism; state sovereignty; drifters and vagrants; local fiefs; free movement (but not that free); private militias; states with usury bans, those that allow it; periodic rebellion; trial by jury (and jury nullification); free, incendiary speech—we get an abstract thing. Never concrete. It does no good to praise abstract Americanism, abstract nationalism.

 Zack Beauchamp in Vox.com also took the conference organizers and most of the speakers to the task for not denouncing Trump for his overall racism and his diatribe against the squad (that happened during the conference), and for not telling Americans "what happens to conservative nationalism when it is put into practice":

Speakers took great pains to draw distinctions between the conference’s ideals and those of the alt-right. During an opening night speech, David Brog, one of the conference organizers, pointed out the exit door and told any racists in the audience that they should head out of it. Yet the speakers also overwhelmingly agreed that a central part of “national conservatism” involved opposing allegedly divisive cultural change wrought by mass immigration. 

There’s an obvious tension in this project of building a conservatism that is simultaneously skeptical of cultural change caused by immigration and, somehow, inclusive of the largely nonwhite immigrants who are responsible for changing it. At times, it became too much to bear... 

No panelist attempted to grapple with this fundamental problem for their agenda. The notion that racism was a major force in American political life was mocked — the word “woke” was a frequent punchline — or sidelined as merely a problem of a tiny alt-right fringe rather than a huge swath of GOP voters. 

This practical reality is, more fundamentally than theory, why Brog and Hazony’s project is doomed. All their denunciations of racism in the abstract, however heartfelt, are empty without a full-throated denunciation of Trump — like a fancy of way of saying “I’m not a racist, but.” Yet they cannot denounce Trump and still claim to speak for “national conservatism,” because Trump is seen by most people (correctly) as this set of ideas made flesh. 

There is no way to square this circle. The “national conservative” conference attendees may dream of a better conservatism, but they already have what they’re trying to create. And it’s much uglier than they can admit.