PRRI survey of Christian nationalism in the US

The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), an American nonprofit, nonpartisan research and education organization, conducts research on politics, culture, and religion. In 2024, PRRI conducted a pioneering national survey enabling estimates of Christian nationalism (CN) support across every U.S. state. Building on this effort, PRRI conducted in-depth interviews with over 22,000 adults to gauge the prevalence and drivers of these views. The following are some of their findings.

Three in ten Americans can qualify as Christian nationalists (10% CN adherents and 20% CN sympathizers). A similar percentage (29%) are rejectors of CN, while 37% were CN skeptics. Support for CN correlates strongly with politics, media consumption, age, and education. Most Republicans are Christian nationalists (53%), compared to only 22% of independents and 16% of Democrats. Americans who view far-right TV news, older Americans, and less-educated Americans also show majority support for CN. In terms of Christian denominations, White evangelical Christians and Hispanic Protestants are the groups most likely to support CN. Also, frequent church attendees (51%) are far more CN supportive than those who seldom or never attend (18%). 

Geographically, unsurprisingly, support for CN is concentrated in the US South and Midwest. States, where CN has the highest support (approximately 50% of their residents) include Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, West Virginia, and North Dakota. Regarding elections and democracy, most Christian nationalists (two-thirds of adherents and nearly half of sympathizers) believe Trump’s victory was divinely ordained. They also express greater confidence in democracy’s strength, are more likely to believe Trump will leave office peacefully, and are less concerned he will use federal power to punish opponents.

Christian Nationalist Americans differ from other Americans on immigration and gender roles. A large majority of CN believe immigrants are mostly illegal, are invading the US, and are replacing their culture and ethnicity. They are also more likely to believe society has become too soft and feminine and that men and women should stick to “naturally suited” roles. Finally, believers in CN are more inclined to endorse political violence.

Jewish Civilizationism in Israel

 My article "Jewish Civilizationism in Israel: A Unique Phenomenon" as published in Religions journal in February 2023.

Abstract:

Populism and civilizationism have transformed the politics of many countries. Many scholars consider them the biggest challenges to democracy since the rise of fascism and communism in the first half of the last century. The close affinity between populism, civilizationism, and rightwing politics has also been analyzed and recognized in many countries from Turkey to India to the US. However, there are three areas that distinguish the appearance of civilizationism in Israel. First, in contrast to many other countries, civilizationism in Israel is not a new phenomenon. It has been an essential part of Israeli nationalism or Zionism since the early 20th century. Second, unlike many countries, Jewish civilizationism in Israel is an article of faith for all major Israeli political parties. It is not a slogan raised only by the rightwing, conservative part of the political spectrum. Finally, one observes an affinity between civilizationism and populism. Civilizational rhetoric is the mainstay of populist leaders, such as Trump, Erdogan, etc. In Israel, populism and civilizationism have no special relationship as civilizationism is mainstream politics. All politicians, populists and non-populists, have to pay homage to Jewish civilizationism; otherwise, they will not succeed. This paper analyzes the Israeli founding fathers’ statements, the Declaration of Independence, Israeli state symbols, the revival of the Hebrew language, the Law of Return, the first debate in the Knesset, and the more recent Nation-State Law to demonstrate how Jewish civilizationism is old, mainstream, and not exclusively populist.

Article

Recent years have seen a rise in civilizational rhetoric in several democratic societies across different continents. In April 2022, Turkish President Erdogan inaugurated the Islamic Civilizations Museum in Istanbul to showcase the versatility and superiority of Islamic civilization (Daily Sabah 2022). In November 2022, Jordan Bardella won the presidential election of the rightwing National Rally party, replacing Marine Le Pen, promising to defend French civilization (Associated Press 2022). In December 2022, Modi said, “India was the most refined idea of human civilisation, the most natural voice of humanity” (The Statesman 2022). While the focus of nationalism is territorial, the civilizational rhetoric prioritizes defending or saving a civilization based on religion, not a state. The state is considered a single manifestation of civilization that spans many territories and millennia. Both rightwing and leftwing populist leaders have used this rhetoric to win voters and elections by denouncing liberalism and established mainstream parties. For instance, in Europe, numerous rightwing populist European parties and leaders have fought and won elections based on the argument that Christian civilization or Judeo-Christian civilization and traditions are under threat from Islam, Muslims, and other refugees that do not belong to the White Christian civilization (Yilmaz and Morieson 2021; Ozzano and Bolzonar 2020; Brubaker 2016; Kaya and Tecmen 2019; Marchetti et al. 2022).

Yilmaz and Morieson (2022) have identified civilizationism as another thick ideology that populism, a thin ideology, attaches to itself to give itself a solid defensible argument. They define civilizationism in the following way:

Civilizationism is an idea which posits that the world and its peoples can be divided into several ‘civilizations’, most of them defined by religion. Adhered to populism, civilizationism defines self and other not primarily in national terms, but civilizational terms...

This article focuses on Jewish civilizationism in the state of Israel. Three aspects distinguish Israel from most other countries where civilizational rhetoric and politics have been successful. First, in most of the other countries, such as in the United States, Turkey, India, and Poland, civilizationism, linked with religion, was until a few decades ago a fringe phenomenon (Saleem 2023). Scholars link it primarily to the 21st century. This might be the case for other countries but, as this chapter will show, Israeli civilizationism is mainstream and as old as the Israeli state, if not older. Israeli nationalism or Zionism is based on Jewish civilizationism. From the First Zionist Congress in 1897 to the Nation-State Law passed in 2018, Jewish civilizationism has monopolized Israeli nationalism and defeated attempts by many Israeli scholars and leaders to make Israel a state honoring the histories and lives of all its citizens equally.

Second, in numerous countries, civilizationism is closely associated with rightwing nationalism and populism. It is the rightwing parties and movements that have raised the flag of civilizationism, and they are its key torch bearers. Whether it is the Republican Party in the US, the Justice and Development Party in Turkey, or the Bharatiya Janata Party in India, the rightwing conservatives spread religio-civilizational rhetoric and are the most impressed by it. This is not the case in Israel. It was the socialist, broadly secular leftwingers that raised the flag of Jewish civilizationism and created the state of Israel. Even after the creation of Israel, the broadly leftwing parties ruled Israel for thirty years and kept Jewish civilizationism alive.

Finally, when one studies other country cases, one observes an affinity between civilizationism and populism. Civilizational rhetoric is primarily the mainstay of populist leaders. Civilizationism has played a key role in making such leaders win elections and dominate the political arena. Erdogan and Modi, two populist leaders, have used civilizationism to completely change the politics of their countries. Now, even the opposition parties in Turkey and India have to resort to civilizational rhetoric to prove their authenticity. Populist leaders instrumentalize religion and religious identity to create a sense of fear that the national culture and identity are civilizational, and that it is under attack by people from foreign civilizations living not only outside the state but also inside the state. In Israel, this exclusive affinity between populism and civilizationism breaks down. As Jewish civilizationism is not limited to the left wing or right wing, similarly, it is not limited to populist or mainstream politics. Jewish civilizationism is Israeli nationalism as propagated by the state, and rejecting it means rejecting the basis of the state. Therefore, no political party, populist or non-populist, can succeed in Israel without bowing to this altar.

The rest of the article can be read here.

Israel: An Ethnocracy or Democracy? Can a Zionist state be a democratic state?

Judaism is a religion, Zionism is a political ideology. As anti-Zionism is increasingly being equated with anti-Semitism, there is a need to analyze these terms in the historical context and how they are being used today. The implications of how these terms are defined are not only limited to Israelis, Palestinians, or people in the Middle East but also to Jewish people living all over the world and their relationship with the majorities in the countries they live in. Richard Silverstein, in his famous blog, Tikun Olam, discusses in detail Zionism, Isreali democracy, BDS, fascism, Holocaust, white supremism links with Judeo-supremism, BLM-Jewish relations, etc. Some excerpts of blog are reproduced below (Entire blog can be accessed Conflating Judaism and Zoinism: Bad New for Jews):

Often arguments over political or religious terms used in everyday discourse are dry or the province purely of zealots.  But these terms can develop a power all their own. Religious or political azealots take them to heart and make life and death decisions based on their interpretation. This is the case regarding  Judaism and Zionism.

Israel’s founding document and sacred text of Zionism, the Declaration of Independence, defined the state as “Jewish” and inextricably tied to the Diaspora, which was anticipated to ensure its future by furnishing much of its immigrant population. Later in 1985, Israel’s Basic Law added the term “democratic,” thus yoking the two words inextricably.

After 1977, and the ascendancy of the far-right Likud and other ultra-nationalist parties, the unresolvable tension between “Jewish” and “democratic” become clear.  They paid lip-service to Israel’s democracy and embraced the supremacy of Israeli Jews.  Passage in 2018 of the nation-state law as a Basic Law enshrined the notion of Judeo-supremacy. It also defined with solemn permanence the subjugation of Palestinian citizens of Israel.But the seeds of Israeli racism were there from the state’s  inception. It was not democratic because it did not offer non-Jewish citizens equal rights.  In fact, Palestinians lived under martial law from 1948-1966.

Israel offered Jewish citizens superior rights, the definition of an ethnocracy.  That is, a nation in which the majority ethnic or religious group enjoys a set of rights which the minority is denied.  This phenomenon was strengthened after 1967, when the settler movement became a de facto form of Judeo-supremacy. Its original focus was on “settling” Jews outside the Green Line in what it called the Greater Land of Israel (i.e. Palestine). But its political ambitions gradually became much more expansive till today, when it maintains a firm grip on virtually all the levers of state power.

Many Diaspora and Israeli Jews shared a liberal Zionist dream of a Jewish democratic state. But we have come to understand that democracy and “Jewishness,” in terms of the Israeli state, cannot be reconciled. They simply cannot coexist.The same is true of Judaism and Zionism. Israel, in the beginning, was a secular state in which the ruling parties endorsed socialism and offered a version of the welfare state. But when Benjamin Netanyahu became finance minister in 2003, he dismantled it with a series of harsh Thatcherite polices. They in turn rendered socialism obsolete.  Even more recently Israel has dropped secularism as well.  A plurality of Jews continue to be secular, but overwhelming political power and social control rests on a system of Judeo-supremacism...

For this reason, it’s critical to distinguish between Judaism as a religion and Zionism as a political ideology.  Israel is a nation, not a religion.  Zionism is a political movement, not a theology. Judaism as a religion is a spiritual expression which eschews, at least in the Diaspora, political power.  Remember Zechariah’s famous dictum: “Not by might, now by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord of Hosts.”

 

Mixing politics and religion poses tremendous danger.  When a conflict lies in the realm of politics it is often possible to arrive at compromise.  It might not be easy, and it may take years.  But political differences can be negotiated and resolved.  Politics are not always rational, but at their best they are.  Conflicting political views can be resolved through rational discussion and analysis.

But once a conflict takes on a religious dimension, compromise becomes almost impossible.  You have moved from the material world to the divine.  A nation which believes that God has sanctified it has assumed a mantle of omnipotence and infallibility.  With God on your side, you are invincible.  Such beliefs have been the cause of immense human suffering over the ages.

Israel’s prevailing religious ultra-nationalism has succeeded in wielding religion as a powerful tool in a political conflict. Just as von Clausewitz said that war was “politics by other means,” so Israel’s political-religious extremists offer warrior Judaism as politics by other means. This is the malady afflicting Israel today. 

 

Who is who and who is in bed with whom in Israeli elections in September

Israel had Knesset elections in April but no party could form a government when Yisrael Beiteinu's leader Avigdor Lieberman, who was once a close lieutenant of Netanyahu, insisted that more ultra-Orthodox men have to do the compulsory military service. It meant either Yisrael Beiteinu or the two ultra-Orthodox parties (Shas and United Torah Judaism) could be part of the ruling coalition and this made it impossible for Bibi to form a government. This also meant the plan of Bibi to legislate immunity for himself from corruption charges would have to be deferred. If Bibi is the King of Israel, Lieberman has become the kingmaker (See  How Israel’s ‘kingmaker’ could be the man to end Bibi’s reign). Bibi has done Lieberman but Yisrael Beiteinu's seats are expected to double from April in the coming September elections (from five to ten), making him even more important.

Meanwhile, Israel is steadily moving rightward, more nationalistic and more religious as compared to 2015 Knesset elections (See  Israel's Political Map Has Shifted Rightward – and That’s Bad News for Netanyahu) 

Source: Israel's Political Map Has Shifted Rightward – and That’s Bad News for Netanyahu)

Allison Kaplan Sommer in Haaretz explains the major parties/coalitions that are fighting the September elections (See Israel’s Do-over Election: A Guide to All the Parties and Who Holds the Keys to the Next Government)

Following are almost all the parties, as described by Allison, that are fighting in this election (original article can read here):

Yamina
The newly formed Yamina (formerly United Right) slate is essentially a restoration of the alliance Ayelet Shaked helped dismantle, with disastrous results, after she and Naftali Bennett broke away to form Hayamin Hehadash last December. (Their new party failed to cross the electoral threshold). After a weak showing in the election, the religious parties they left behind — Habayit Hayehudi and Bezalel Smotrich's National Union, realized that the whole of the “right of Netanyahu” camp is greater than the sum of its parts, and have fallen in line behind Shaked — to the astonishment of men who did not believe male Orthodox political leaders could ever bow to the leadership of a secular woman. 

But political survival is a powerful motivator. After polls made it clear that the personal popularity of Shaked would garner them extra seats in the Knesset, they agreed that she should top the ticket.

Source: Israel’s Do-over Election: A Guide to All the Parties and Who Holds the Keys to the Next Government

Joint List

They’re back! After a powerful debut showing in the 2015 election, in which it won an impressive 13 seats, the alliance of four predominantly Arab parties broke into two separate slates for the April race — and the results were bad. 

Disheartened and unhappy with the Joint List’s ugly breakup earlier this year, voter turnout in the Arab community dropped dramatically — from 63 percent down to just 50 percent. The two slates (Hadash-Ta’al and United Arab List-Balad) only picked up 10 seats between them, a major drop in representation. Having learned the error of their ways, the four ideologically disparate parties have decided to unite once more to reenergize their community. The slate’s leader, Ayman Odeh, has expressed hope that the move will help “overthrow the right-wing government,” as well as “preventing racism, annexation and the destruction of democracy.”

Yisrael Beiteinu
Avigdor Lieberman played his political cards cleverly when he refused to join Netanyahu’s coalition after April’s election, thus triggering the September ballot. His bold move, grandstanding against the ultra-Orthodox parties and forcing a new election, has not hurt his electoral chances by turning off right-wing voters. On the contrary: Polls indicate he could nearly double the number of seats he won in April (five) by turning himself into a gladiator for secular Israelis standing up against the ultra-Orthodox parties, and his declaration that he will force Likud into forming a national unity government. If Netanyahu refuses, he says, he will shift his support to Gantz. 

This has led Netanyahu to charge that his rival is betraying the right and that “a vote for Lieberman is a vote for a left-wing government.” Netanyahu and Likud have been working — thus far in vain — to convince Russian-speaking voters that he, not Lieberman, is their true champion.

United Torah Judaism
Not much has changed for the Ashkenazi, ultra-Orthodox alliance comprised of Agudat Yisrael and Degel Hatorah, which hopes to recreate its strong showing in the April election. There is a possibility UTJ could even make gains, bolstering voter turnout by using Lieberman’s threat to work for a coalition without them. Such a government, their leaders will warn communities, will try to draft their children. Lieberman has said he is determined to forge ahead with government plans to cut the number of full-time yeshiva students granted exemptions from army service. It was UTJ’s refusal to yield to Lieberman on this point that ultimately triggered the new election. 

Despite the fact UTJ forced Netanyahu into this situation, it remains loyal to the prime minister. Its leader, Yaakov Litzman, said recently that the party wouldn’t consider supporting any other candidate, saying, “We will go with Bibi alone.”

Shas
Like its Ashkenazi counterpart, the Mizrahi ultra-Orthodox party is confident that things can only improve in the do-over election — though some polls suggest otherwise. Shas leader Arye Dery aspires to winning 10 seats in September, but recent polls indicate a more modest showing with only seven seats — one fewer than the eight it won in April.
Shas, like UTJ, will run hard against Lieberman’s threat to push it out of the coalition by forming a unity government that would include its other political nemesis — Kahol Lavan’s Yair Lapid. And, as it did in April, Shas will stand firm on refusing to join a coalition that is not led by Likud and Netanyahu.

Labor-Gesher
In the first Israeli election of 2019, Labor was hobbled by the leadership of problematic outsider Avi Gabbay. Now, though, he has been replaced by former party head Amir Peretz, but there’s a new problem: Peretz’s decision to attempt to appeal to the center-right by teaming up with Orli Levi-Abekasis’ Gesher party, which failed to enter the Knesset in April, This has sown discontent in Labor ranks, as has his refusal to forge an alliance with Meretz or Ehud Barak’s new party, Democratic Israel. 

The darkening mood in the party was further fueled after one of its young stars, Stav Shaffir, jumped ship, joining Meretz and Barak in the new Democratic Union, and former party leader and Peretz ally Shelly Yacimovich — one of its most influential lawmakers — announced she was taking a break from political life. 

It hasn’t helped morale that new polls show the party performing even more poorly than it did in April, where it garnered only six seats — a humiliating position for the party of Israel’s founding fathers to find itself in.

Democratic Union
Among the wave of alliances in Israeli politics, this new electoral pact is perhaps the oddest. It was born after former Prime Minister Ehud Barak thundered back onto the political scene in May, burning with desire to unite the nation’s center-left and leftist parties into one. And although he didn’t declare as much, he implied that he’d like to see himself leading the charge. 

There had been talk of a Labor-Meretz merger, but the Barak factor disrupted the dynamic. In the end, Barak has joined with Meretz (a left-wing/Zionist party) in a marriage aimed at keeping both parties above the electoral threshold — with the added bonus of renegade Labor lawmaker Shaffir. She expressed hope that more Labor members would follow her lead, but has largely been disappointed. 

Also disappointed: Barak himself, who has been forced to forfeit his leadership role within the new party in order to assuage misgivings about his connections to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — a scandal that threatened to end his political comeback before it even began. 

The hegemony of Israel's political right in Knesset elections

In How Israel’s religious right is now in the driving seat, Jonathan Cook argues that right dominates Israel's politics and is going to win most seats in the coming Knesset elections. The key fight is between the camps that fuse ultra-nationalism and religion, with the secular right trying to find a place for itself. The center-left, including the once-powerful Labor Party that dominated Israeli politics for decades, is going to remain marginal and insignificant. 

Will the secular right emerge with enough political weight to act as a power-broker in the post-election negotiations, or can the religious right form a government without any support from the secular parties? That is what the election will determine. 

An earlier election in April, which failed to produce a decisive result between these two camps, nonetheless confirmed the right’s absolute dominance. The Zionist centre-left parties, including the founding Labor party, were routed, securing between them just 10 seats in the 120-member parliament.

Source: How Israel’s religious right is now in the driving seat

Cook argues that Israel's is getting more religious and, therefore, the political center is continuously moving towards right. 

The secular right is going to vote for two parties, the new Blue and White party and Yisrael Beiteinu party, led by Avigdor Lieberman:

Much of the rest of the secular right has deserted Netanyahu’s Likud party. At the last election, they mostly found a political home in the new Blue and White party, led by a former military chief of staff, Benny Gantz. 

Polls suggest Lieberman may also attract a larger share of these voters after his recent stand-off with Netanyahu. He has demanded an exclusively secular right-wing government, comprising Likud, Blue and White, and his own Yisrael Beiteinu party. Blue and White has presented itself chiefly as a vehicle for protest against Netanyahu...

Blue and White has been misleadingly labelled as centrist by some observers. But it tied with Netanyahu’s Likud, at 35 seats each, in April by appealing to a largely secular strain of right-wing nationalism that three decades ago was the domain of the Likud party.

The religious right camp can be divided into three blocs as described by Cook below:

The religious right itself is characterised by three main blocs. All believe that the occupied territories belong exclusively to the Jewish people, and are united in their unabashed support for the settlements and the entrenchment of the occupation. Political differences relate chiefly to matters of how quickly and brazenly the occupied territories should be annexed and how the Palestinian population there should be dealt with. 

More significant than ideological differences, however, are the varied religious constituencies that each bloc represents. Netanyahu’s Likud party is the largest, and draws primarily on the support of religious traditionalists – Israeli Jews who are generally observant and socially conservative. Likud, Gurvitz noted, has moved more firmly into the religious camp since 2005... 

The second bloc comprises two ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, which look to their respective chief rabbis for political direction. Between them they won 16 seats in April. 

The main difference between the two relates to ethnicity. United Torah Judaism represents the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox community, whose recent ancestry is traced to Europe. Shas, meanwhile, represents the Mizrahim, Jews whose families hailed mostly from the Arab world. The third bloc comprises various small far-right parties representing what are known in Israel as the national-religious camp – those who subscribe to the ideology of the settler community... 

Gurvitz [a researcher] estimates the camp numbers close to one million – or about one in seven of Israel’s Jewish population. About half live in the settlements of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The majority are religious, but not all of them. The camp has proved fractious, but its three main parties established an electoral coalition last week called United Right, which polls currently suggest may win up to 14 seats... 

The three parties have minor differences over their approaches to annexation of the West Bank, likely the biggest issue facing the next parliament. Shaked’s New Right and Peretz’s Jewish Home demand formal annexation of most of the West Bank, denying Palestinians there equal rights and imposing apartheid-style rule over them. 

Since Donald Trump became US President, Likud has moved closer to openly adopting this as its policy. Smotrich [of Tkuma], meanwhile, would prefer to annex the entire West Bank and has been more explicit in suggesting it would be necessary to ethnic cleanse Palestinians as part of that annexation process... 

The fact that Likud and the United Right compete for largely the same pool of voters had fuelled even more extremist positions on the right, he [Gurvitz] added. “The national-religious parties need to offer more extreme policies to distinguish themselves from Likud, otherwise they will lose votes to Netanyahu,” he said. “But that then encourages Netanyahu to take more extreme positions to ensure he doesn’t look less nationalist than his rivals. It ends up creating a spiral of extremism.”

American (Christian) Churches and Racism

The last blog post focused on whether religion is part of white nationalism. This blog post furthers the debate on how white racism was supported by the Christian churches in the US. It is very difficult to separate white racism (or for that matter white nationalism) from Christianity in the US. Protestant Christianity was part of American nationalism. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants or WASPs controlled the state and were the leaders of the society. And they were not ready to accept Blacks or Jews or even Catholics or Mormons as American. The national identity was defined by the WASPs and they drew the boundaries around them.

Jemar Tisby's new book, The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism, narrates the history of complicity of American churches in racism:

The Color of Compromise takes readers on a historical journey: from America’s early colonial days through slavery and the Civil War, covering the tragedy of Jim Crow laws and the victories of the Civil Rights era, to today’s Black Lives Matter movement. Author Jemar Tisby reveals the obvious—and the far more subtle—ways the American church has compromised what the Bible teaches about human dignity and equality. 

 Tisby uncovers the roots of sustained injustice in the American church, highlighting the cultural and institutional tables that need to be turned in order to bring about real and lasting progress between black and white people. Through a story-driven survey of American Christianity’s racial past, he exposes the concrete and chilling ways people of faith have actively worked against racial justice, as well as the deafening silence of the white evangelical majority. Tisby shows that while there has been progress in fighting racism, historically the majority of the American church has failed to speak out against this evil. This ongoing complicity is a stain upon the church, and sadly, it continues today. 

Tisby does more than diagnose the problem, however. He charts a path forward with intriguing ideas that further the conversation as he challenges us to reverse these patterns and systems of complicity with bold, courageous, and immediate action. The Color of Compromise provides an accurate diagnosis for a racially divided American church and suggests creative ways to foster a more equitable and inclusive environment among God’s people.

Religion and Politics did an interview with Mr. Tisby. Some excerpts of the interview are given below (Full interview can be read here): 

R&P: As the subtitle states, your book is a sweeping survey of the American church’s complicity in racism. To your mind, what constitutes complicity?
Jemar Tisby: The book opens with the story of four girls who died when the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. Shortly after that event, a white lawyer named Charles Morgan Jr. got up in front of an all-white business club and gave an address in which he asked who was responsible for throwing that bomb. In answer to his own question, he said, “We all did it.” 

He went on to explain that every time that the white community—especially Christians—failed to confront racism in its everyday, mundane forms, they created a context of compromise that allowed for an extreme act of racial terror like planting dynamite at a church. That’s the idea of complicity. It’s not that every Christian was a foaming-at-the-mouth racist hurling racial slurs and burning crosses on peoples’ lawns. It’s that when they had the opportunity to intervene in everyday ways, they chose complicity over confrontation, and this enabled a larger atmosphere of racial compromise.

R&P: Though some American Christians were enthusiastically racist and others were anti-racist, most just accepted racist institutions. To what extent are we free to judge that, and to what extent do we have to accept them as products of their time?
JT: I think some would argue that most of those who I am identifying as complicit in racism were merely men and women of their time. But I would respond that the abolitionists and civil rights activists and others who struggled for black freedom were also men and women of their time. So it’s not as though Christians—particularly white Christians—didn’t know there were alternatives. It’s that they must have had some investment in maintaining the status quo, or that they had some fear of what other people would say or what they would risk if they stood up for racial equality. 

R&P: Was the situation in the South markedly different from that in the North?
JT: A lot of people like to point a finger at the South and say, “Those are the real racists.” The implication is that there is no comparable problem in the Midwest or the West coast or the Northeast. But the reality is much more complicated than that. 

I purposely included a chapter in the book on Christian complicity in the North, and by North I mean anywhere outside of the South. There are examples from various geographic regions. The bottom line is that bigotry knows no boundaries. It’s not that racism stopped at the Mason-Dixon line. The thing that makes the South stand out is that this was the physical site where race-based chattel slavery occurred. It’s the place where the plantations were located. But the entire country was implicated because the agricultural production in the South fueled industrial production in the North and other parts of the United States. 

Later, when the country played host to race riots—and here I mean white race riots—these occurred in urban areas outside of the South, like Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, and others in the Northeast as well. So there was no region that was free from complicity and no region that was free from racism. 

R&P: As the nation moved from slavery to Jim Crow to redlining and mass incarceration, did the church response reveal any sort of moral trajectory? Did it get noticeably better or worse over time?
JT: Martin Luther King Jr. once said that, when it came to issues of justice, the church was often the taillight rather than the headlight in society. By that, he meant that the church often followed along after changes in the racial status quo were already taking place in different arenas, from politics to entertainment to corporations, and that’s what we often see throughout U.S. history. Though many Christians were actively engaged in struggles for racial equality, they tended to be in the minority. The majority of white Christians, at least, did change, but only as the national sentiment was already moving toward more openness and more equality. The change was slow and a little reluctant. 

Consider G.T. Gillespie, for example. In 1954, the year of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Gillespie was president emeritus of Belhaven College, and he gave an address called “A Christian View on Segregation,” in which he justified racial segregation, he said, based on the Bible. It’s just one example of many white evangelical Christians fighting against the political changes that would promote racial integration. 

It was only after Brown v. Board that many Christians capitulated to what was already the law of the land. But there was a disappointing scarcity of Christians who were promoting racial integration or celebrating the end of Jim Crow.

Nationalism vs. globalism: A talk with Professor Yuval Noah Harari

A very interesting discussion with Professor Tuval Noah Harari on the future of the humankind. Professor Harari is one of the foremost thinkers alive today. He has written two international bestsellers on topics that few experts feel confident to write about. Sapiens: A brief history of humankind tells the story of the homo sapiens from the time, around hundred thousand years ago, when they were not even the most important human species on earth, to the present while Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow is about humanity's future on this planet.

Professor Harari argues that nationalism is an idea whose time has passed. It served most of the mankind well but now it has no solutions to the complicated problems that the humanity faces today. Whether it is climate change, technological disruption or genetic bioengineering, nationalists have no answers so they simply deny that these problems exist or just do not talk about it. Professor Harari contends that other (more global) loyalties have to come and not replace nationalism but co-exist with it, if humans have to survive in the form they are now.

About identities, Professor Harari expounds, "Identity is always problematic because identity is always based on fictional stories that sooner or later collide with reality. Almost all identities, I mean, beyond the level of basic community of a few dozen people, are based on a fictional story. They are not the truth. They are not the reality. It's just a story that people invent and tell one another and start believing. And all identities are extremely unstable."  

Professor Harari explains that nationalism is a lot less deadly than before. We do not have many armed conflicts between nations. Even in the 20th century, millions died for nationalism, but it is hard to imagine it can happen today. For all the talk about the rise of nationalism in the Western world, its power today, according to Harari, is "far, far smaller than a century before." However, nationalism hinders our way in solving problems that are immense and immediate. If humans do not change their focus, things can unravel fast. He says, "One of the things, I know as a historian is that you should never underestimate human stupidity. It's one of the most powerful forces in history."

Who are evangelical Christians?

It is widely accepted that evangelical Christians are the main force behind the rising tide of religious nationalism in the US. The triumph of President Trump in 2016 presidential election was not possible without evangelical support. One year later, the evangelicals are still one of the most loyal supporters of President Trump. But who are these evangelicals? Some researchers simply ask a person whether he or she is an evangelical or a born-again Christian i.e. give priority to self-identification. They do not worry about an objective definition or think it is impossible to define evangelicals objectively (because being born-again is a personal experience which cannot be measured objectively). However, as a very large number of American, sometimes having very different political, social and religious beliefs/attitudes, self-identify themselves as evangelicals, it is important to dig a little deeper than simply asking a person whether he or she is an evangelical or is a "born-again" Christian. 

The disparate nature of evangelicalism makes its members difficult to define. They don’t have a single authority like the Roman Catholic pope or Mormon First Presidency, so you can’t just phone a central office and ask for the official definition. Since they span a range of denominations, churches, and organizations, there is no single membership statement to delineate identity. As a result, individual observers are left to decide how to define what makes someone or something evangelical. To the pollster, it is a sociological term. To the pastor, it is a denominational or doctrinal term. And to the politician, it is a synonym for a white Christian Republican.

So what is an evangelical, for the love of God, and why does it even matter?...

David Kinnaman, the president of Barna Group and author of the forthcoming Good Faith: Being a Christian When Society Thinks You’re Irrelevant and Extreme argues that “The way one defines ‘evangelical’ influences the story they tell about the most influential group within the most influential religion in the world’s most influential country.” 

Depending on how you define the term, evangelicals comprise between 7 percent and 47 percent of the American population. Divergent definitions have led to inconsistent, even contradictory survey results about evangelicals’ beliefs and characteristics. Reports based on these surveys can shape elections, public policies, and broader public opinion. (see Defining 'Evangelical')

Billy Graham, the most prominent evangelical of the 20th century, himself acknowledged the definitional issues. With the growth of political importance of the evangelicals, researchers and evangelicals have come up with other subjective indicators to identify an evangelical. For example, historian Dr. Bebbington talks about the “quadrilateral of priorities” as the basis of evangelicalism. Joel Rainey, in his article on the identification of evangelicals, argues that, despite the negative press, the evangelicals are not all conservative, Republican fanatics that hate all immigrants, Muslims and LGBT. They are bearers of good news and for the advancement of civilization:

In a 1987 interview, Reverend Billy Graham—arguably the most prominent evangelical preacher of the twentieth century—was asked what an evangelical was. “Actually, that’s a question I’d like to ask somebody too,” Graham told religion reporter Terry Mattingly. “The lines [have] become blurred. . . . You go all the way from the extreme fundamentalists to the extreme liberals, and somewhere in between, there are the evangelicals.”

The Evangelical Movement
Evangelicalism began among Protestants in Great Britain in the 1730s. The movement spread as a result of a series of “Great Awakenings” during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

A plethora of new Christian denominations and new branches within existing denominations sprang up in the wake of these religious movements, each emphasizing spreading the gospel. These denominations tended toward fundamentalism and shared what University of Stirling historian David W. Bebbington calls the “quadrilateral of priorities”—the basis of evangelicalism:

• The need to be born again (a personal conversion)
• The supremacy of biblical authority
• Salvation through the death and resurrection of the Son of God
• Active sharing of the gospel through evangelism

Evangelical churches have historically tended to be Protestant, although evangelical movements occasionally spring up within Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism-Episcopalianism...

At heart, evangelicals are simply bearers of the good news of Jesus Christ. This news is that Jesus loved humanity enough to enter our world and do what was necessary to bring healing and understanding, and to offer the opportunity for a genuine relationship with him (see Who are evangelicals?).

The National Association of Evangelicals (America’s largest coalition of evangelicals, which was established in 1942 and claims to represent more than 45,000 local churches from around 40 different denominations and millions of Americans) agrees with Bebbington's  “quadrilateral of priorities” but crucially also gives four gives statements to which a person has to agree strongly to be designated as an evangelical. These four statements ignore the necessity of "born-again" experience:

The term “evangelical” comes from the Greek word euangelion, meaning “the good news” or the “gospel.” Thus, the evangelical faith focuses on the “good news” of salvation brought to sinners by Jesus Christ.

Evangelicals are a vibrant and diverse group, including believers found in many churches, denominations and nations. Our community brings together Reformed, Holiness, Anabaptist, Pentecostal, Charismatic and other traditions.

Our core theological convictions provide unity in the midst of our diversity. The NAE Statement of Faith offers a standard for these evangelical convictions.

Historian David Bebbington also provides a helpful summary of evangelical distinctives, identifying four primary characteristics of evangelicalism:

• Conversionism: the belief that lives need to be transformed through a “born-again” experience and a life long process of following Jesus

• Activism: the expression and demonstration of the gospel in missionary and social reform efforts

• Biblicism: a high regard for and obedience to the Bible as the ultimate authority

• Crucicentrism: a stress on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross as making possible the redemption of humanity

These distinctives and theological convictions define us — not political, social or cultural trends. In fact, many evangelicals rarely use the term “evangelical” to describe themselves, focusing simply on the core convictions of the triune God, the Bible, faith, Jesus, salvation, evangelism and discipleship.

Defining Evangelicals in Research
Evangelicals are a common subject of research, but often the outcomes of that research vary due to differences in the methods used to identify evangelicals. In response to that challenge the NAE and LifeWay Research developed a tool to provide a consistent standard for identification of evangelical belief.
The NAE/LifeWay Research method includes four statements to which respondents must strongly agree to be categorized as evangelical:

• The Bible is the highest authority for what I believe.

• It is very important for me personally to encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus Christ as their Savior.

• Jesus Christ’s death on the cross is the only sacrifice that could remove the penalty of my sin.

• Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation. (see What is an Evangelical?)

Some feel that evangelicals may also be distinguished from other Christians, along with the “quadrilateral of priorities,” on the basis of eschatology. The evangelicals strongly believe in a particular description/type of the end-of-times:

Different from other denominations, the top five identifying beliefs of evangelical Christians are:

1. They point to a specific, personal conversion experience in which they are "born again" or "saved." According to PrayerFoundation.com, "individuals (above an age of accountability) must personally trust in Jesus Christ for salvation."

2. Evangelical Christians believe in the Bible as God's inspired Word to humankind, perfect in truth in the original text. It is the "final authority in all matters of doctrine and faith  — above all human authority," according to EvangelicalBeliefs.com.

3. Evangelicals believe the work of Jesus on the cross, through his death and resurrection, is the only source of salvation and forgiveness of sins. PrayerFoundation.com makes it clear that salvation is through faith alone. 

People can do nothing to earn their way to heaven. Instead, as EvangelicalBeliefs.com points out, believers do "good works in grateful response to our pardon, not to cause it."

4. Evangelical Christians are strongly motivated to share the gospel either one-on-one or through organized missions. Emphasis is placed on the Great Commission's call to share with the world the Christian message of salvation through Christ, and to "be publicly baptized as a confession of faith," according to PrayerFoundation.com.

5. Most, though not all, evangelicals believe there will be a rapture in the end times where the church will be "caught up with Christ before the Great Tribulation, leaving nonbelievers behind to suffer on Earth," states the Pew Research Center. This idea has gained attention through the "Left Behind" book series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, and the related movies. (see 5 Beliefs That Set Evangelicals Apart From Other Christians)

Barna Group, a conservative research group, has a nine-point criteria to identify an evangelical. In their surveys, they do not ask respondents whether they are born-again Christian or evangelical to identify them as evangelicals. The evangelicals, according to Barna Group are those who:

1. have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ;
2. believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior;
3. believe that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; 
4. say their faith is very important in their life today; 
5. believe they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians;
6. believe that Satan exists; 
7. believe that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; 
8. assert that the Bible is accurate in all of its teachings; and 
9. describe God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. (see Is Evangelism going out of style?)

So, in addition to quadrilateral of priorities, to be an evangelical, one also has to believe in a perfect God, the existence of Satan, and Christ's sinless life on earth.

The above discussion on the definition of evangelical prioritizes their identification on the basis of religious beliefs, not on the basis of their political orientations. But the self-identified evangelicals vote as a group on numerous salient political issues. What should be given importance, religious beliefs or political attitude? Since the term "evangelical" started as a religious term, one could argue that religious beliefs should be given more importance and some evangelicals are trying to do that:

For some Christian conservatives, the political behavior described by journalists and political pollsters misses the essence of true, church-going evangelicalism. As Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest evangelical Protestant denomination, said last year: “Secular people have for a long time misunderstood the meaning of ‘evangelical,’ seeing us almost exclusively in terms of election-year voting blocs or our most buffoonish television personalities” – including many of those who comprise Trump’s evangelical advisory board.

“Part of the problem with the political identity of evangelicals is that typically the questions that pollsters ask are, ‘Are you a born-again or evangelical Christian?’ ” says Marsden, “and you have all sorts of people who say, ‘I guess so.’ ”

“That makes it seem that groups of Evangelicals are bigger than they actually are,” says Marsden. “And it also invites all sorts of people who aren’t very deeply religious to say that they are in this cultural group.”

With a more ethnically diverse and theologically-focused definition of evangelicalism, the movement may not seem so politically uniform, scholars suggest.

“The crisis over the ‘evangelical’ label is a crisis for the 20 percent of white Evangelicals who did not vote for Donald J. Trump, as well as the lion’s share of nonwhite Evangelicals,” says Professor Schmalzbauer. “White Evangelicals who sympathize with Trump’s rhetorical defense of white Christian America and his religious nationalism are not worried about the future of the evangelical brand.”

“The soul searching and agonizing is among moderate to progressive Evangelicals, Latino and Asian-American Evangelicals, and evangelical scholars – especially those who do not ‘pray Republican’ or who reject the Trump takeover of the Republican Party,” he continues. (see In Trump era, what does it mean to be an 'Evangelical'?)

Source: In Trump era, what does it mean to be an 'Evangelical'?

However, politically and socially, a religiously-focused definition (instead of one-question self-identification) is problematic as it casts millions of American who call themselves evangelicals and have social and political attitudes similar to most religiously-defined evangelicals out of the group. What should the non-evangelical group that always votes with the evangelicals be called? It makes sense to study groups of people which vote in the same way and have similar political convictions as a group. Shouldn't the evangelical term be used to identify a political group instead of a religious group as most of the people who self-identify as evangelical are politically similar, but may not be religiously similar? Furthermore, the meaning of evangelical has changed over the last four centuries, so it can change again.

Many evangelicals, who usually vote for the Democratic Party and for socially liberal policies, are unhappy with the current usage of the term but have resigned to the fact that political realities will triumph doctrinal issues and have stopped identifying themselves as evangelicals. 

Serbian religious nationalism: Kosovo as Serbian Jerusalem

Israeli scholar Atalia Omer and Jason Springs in their book Religious Nationalism: A Reference Handbook talk about the myth of Serbian Jerusalem and about the interaction of religion and politics in the Balkans:

Consider, for example, the mythical conception of the small region of Kosovo in Southern Serbia as the Serbian Jerusalem. The image portrays the territory as uniquely sacred to Serbian history and national identity. it amplifies the significance of Kosovo as the homeland of the original Serbian Kingdom (dating back to 13th century), the birthplace of the Serbian Orthodox Church (14th century), and a landscape that remains dotted by the oldest Serbian Orthodox churches, monasteries, and relics. It contains the battlefield of Prince Lazar's defeat at the hands of the Ottomans. These and many other associations contribute to the characterization of Kosovo as the cradle of the Serbian nation, a uniquely sacred soil that has been sprinkled by the blood of Serbian martyrs (almost always, the legend says, at the hands of Muslims). It is just these significances of the Kosov territory that Milosevic mobilized and radicalized during his famous visit to Kosovo Polje (the Field of Black Birds) on Vidovdan (June 28, 1989), at the field of the Battle of Kosovo (page 22) ...

We have seen that religion pervaded nationalist and ethnic conflict in the Balkans through the selective retrieval and manipulation of symbols, ritual practices, and mythic histories by nationalist leaders and political elites. We have seen, as well, that religious associations and identities do not merely serve as instruments or superficial markers of divisions that are actually purely political. In fact, the complex dynamic character of religious nationalism is evident in the ways that religious symbols practices sometimes exert influences and meanings that reach beyond the interests and intentions of those political elites who attempt to manipulate them (page 24-5)...

Given the deep histories and prolonged conflicts in the Balkans, it may be tempting to claim that ethnic, nationalist, and religious divisions have always been the source of violent conflict in these regions, and that they always will be. It might be equally tempting of some to claim, by contrast, that sufficient political and socioeconomic incentives would make the ethnoreligious dimensions of these nationalist conflicts disappear. Both such approaches to understanding and addressing ethnoreligious nationalism in the Balkans insufficient. The challenge, then, is to historically and culturally contextualize the religious dimension of these conflicts and explore them thoroughly, rather than to attempt to bracket them or filter them out, or assume that, under conditions of successful globalization, religion will secularize itself out of the picture (page 25)...

The Serbian use of the martyrdom of Prince Lazar is comparable to how Jewish settlers in the Palestinian Occupied Territories interpret historical time in messianic terms. Both positions result from a framing that justifies ethnocentrism and chauvinism, and often leads to violence. In both instances, understanding of national identity interacts with conceptions of ethnicity and religion in ways that cannot be fully comprehended without a careful examination of relevant mythologies, theologies, and historical events and memories (page 26).

Fresco painting of Prince Lazar and his wife Milica in the Ljubostinja Monastery (1405), near Trstenik, Serbia

Source: Lazar of Serbia

Vjekoslav Perica (University of Rijeka) in his article "Serbian Jerusalem: Religious Nationalism, Globalization and the Invention of a Holy Land in Europe's Periphery, 1985-2017" destroys the myth of Serbian Jerusalem:

Although it sounds appealing and seductive, the nationalist discourse about Serbian Jerusalem, like most nationalist manipulations with the past for present purposes, is an invented tradition. According to Hobsbawm and Ranger, the invention of tradition involves “modern nationalist practices of using ancient materials to construct invented tradition of a novel type for quite novel purposes … the new traditions use old materials, invent new language or devices, extend the old symbolic vocabulary beyond established limits …” Applied to the uses of the past about Kosovo, Kosovo is not, to begin with, a “cradle” of the Serbian nation. Neither medieval nor modern Serbia were founded within borders of present-day Kosovo. Modern Serbia developed in what is today northern Serbia at a lengthy distance from Kosovo and other southern regions. The memory and later state patriotic myth about the medieval empire and its downfall at the 1389 Kosovo medieval battle are narratives and practices of nation building inaugurated in the nineteenth century.

Medieval Serbia, including both church and state, was founded in the thirteenth century in central Serbia, outside borders of the present-day Kosovo. Kosovo historically signifies the area of the later fourteenth-century imperial expansion of the Serbian state and temporary seat of the Church under Ottoman rule in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In short, the new Serbian nationalism since the 1980s has invented and magnified the importance of Kosovo to the proportions of a Jerusalem and a holy land of the Serbs. The purpose of revitalizing the medieval narrative of the lost pride and revenge was the post- Yugoslav and post-communist mass mobilization of Serbs for the Greater Serbia project. In other words, as the contemporary political discourse would put it: making Serbia great again.

From cradle to golden age: Imprecise Metaphors, Invented Traditions, Myths ofNationhood
Medieval Serbia originated in the early thirteenth century in the province of Rascia/Raška in present-day central Serbia. Almost a century later, the earliest Serb state later expanded to Kosovo (after the Field of Black Birds, later the Kosovo battlefield) and Metohija (denoting monastery-owned land) in the present-day Kosovo. This part of what would be later, when modern Serbia re-emerged at the northern capital Belgrade, called Old Serbia, is the actual “cradle” of Serbia. Because there, not in Kosovo, the princes and bishops of the Nemanjić dynasty established an independent kingdom and a self-governing Christian Church of the Byzantine rite and ruled there for more than a hundred years prior to the foundation of an imperial capital and a supreme church authority in Kosovo.

The principal shrine and historic monument where the Church independence was proclaimed is the monastery of Studenica in the village Studenica, Commune of Kraljevo, Raška District, Republic of Serbia. Established in the late twelfth century by Stevan Nemanja, founder of the medieval Serb state, Studenica is the largest of Serbia’s medieval monasteries. Its two principal monuments, the Church of the Virgin and the Church of the King, both built of white marble, enshrine priceless collections of thirteenth and fourteenth century Byzantine paintings. UNESCO posted Studenica on World Heritage List in 1986, two decades before any of the Kosovo monasteries. Another key sacred historic monument from this earliest period of Serbian statehood is the monastery Žića, located in the heartland of Serbia. Žića lies at the distance of about 300 kilometers to the west from Priština, the present-day capital of Kosovo, and about 250 km from the Kosovo town of Pećh (Ipek), the later seat of the patriarchate. At the Žića monastery built by King Stefan of the Nemanjić dynasty and his son Sava, in 1219, a church council proclaimed an independent archdiocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church electing Sava as the archbishop. The Žića monastery is the place of coronation of the first Serb ruler Stefan and six other Serb kings. There, the first head of the Church was enthroned. In short, the earliest and oldest, historically most important Serb monasteries are Žića, Studenica and Sopoćani. Hilandar, the most important Serbian holy place outside Serbia, is in Greece, built atop the Holy Mountain Athos in Greece.

The four holiest and historically most relevant churches and monasteries, and the indisputably major saintly cult of the church’s founder and the state’s co-founder, St. Sava, are all located in Serbia outside Kosovo. Although there are hundreds of more or less preserved Serb historic monuments in Kosovo, only two, namely the old Patriarchate at Peć and the Dečani monastery, possibly match the historical importance of the four holiest and oldest churches and monasteries of Old Serbia. The two, like the Gračanica Memorial Church at the Kosovo battlefield and other sacred historic landmarks of Kosovo, are relevant, yet they do not make Kosovo the place of the state’s origin and foundation or “cradle” of Serbia.

Most importantly, the old Serbia and its main shrines are associated with the highest Serb Orthodox saintly cult of Saint Sava (Rastko Nemanjić). Sava, the founding father of the state, church, and nation lived in Serbia, travelled to Jerusalem and Greece, died in Bulgaria, and probably never visited Kosovo. Sava mediated in dynastic feuds and obtained an independent church via diplomacy balancing between the Ecumenical patriarchate in Constantinopolis and Rome. Sava’s cult celebrates an independent statehood and church autonomy won by diplomacy.

The oldest preserved portrait of Saint Sava as the first Serbian archbishop is a fresco from the Ascension church of Mileševa monastery, foundation of Serbian king Vladislav, 1222-1228. This monastery was Sava’s original burial place yet his major memorial temple was built in Belgrade commemorating Ottoman Turkish ritual burning of Sava’s relics in the sixteenth century. St. Sava is also the founder of what would be later described as a “Serbian Jerusalem”—a chapel and guesthouse for Serb pilgrims to the Holy Land.

Painting of Saint Sava and his two brothers. Prince Sava helped reconcile his brothers who fought for the Serbian throne

Source:  Who are Serbs?

When the early Serbian kingdom was well established, the Church’s seat relocated to Kosovo, which signifies not the birth or foundation but the kingdom’s expansion into an empire. This stage developed under the emperor Dušan the Mighty who was the most powerful of all Serb rulers yet never became a saint of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The Church’s seat relocated to Peć (Ipek) in Kosovo exemplifies two things: first, the domination of Serbs over the neighboring Balkan peoples under Dušan the Mighty and second, the survival of some form of Serb self-government under Ottoman rule. Imperial Kosovo is associated with the rise of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan, Dušan the Mighty, King of Serbia, 1331-1346 and self-proclaimed Emperor of the Serbs, Bulgars, Romanians, Greeks, and Albanians, (1346-1355). Incidentally, Dušan came into a conflict with the Church and was never canonized. After the Great migration of Serbs in 1690, the patriarchate relocated from Kosovo to northwestern Balkans under Austrian Habsburg authority. If Serbia could have two national “cradles” or founding centers that could be only the earlier described St. Sava’s medieval state versus modern Serbia. Modern Serbia was created at the new church seat at Sremski Karlovci (in the present-day Vojvodina), relocated to the new political capital of Belgrade when Serbia became an independent state recognized and expanded at the Congress of Berlin 1878. In the nineteenth century, the Serbian state revived in official patriotic rituals and through schooling, the mythical narrative about the 1389 battle at the Kosovo Filed and the downfall of the empire. The narrative about the Kosovo battle and the lamentations over the lost empire have been since commemorated on state and church holiday—Vidovdan or Saint Vitus Day. Out of these commemorations rose a nation building ideology seeking expansion and restoration of the size and power of the medieval empire.

There are several references to Jerusalem as the Christian Holy City and Holy Land (in the Middle East) in Serbian folklore and history. Yet none of these references could be taken as the precursor to the contemporary meanings and connotations of the phrase “Serbian Jerusalem” referring to Kosovo. First, there is a mention of Jerusalem in the epic narrative about the 1389 Kosovo battle to suggest that the heroic Prince Lazar received a divine message from the Holy Land. Second, as mentioned earlier, there is the chapel and pilgrim’s guesthouse that St. Sava had built in Jerusalem for Serb pilgrims and therefore a “Serbian Jerusalem” (in the Middle East, not in Kosovo). Third, there is the expression of a “Serb Golgotha.” Church leaders sometimes described the Kosovo battle in which most of the Serb nobility perished, and the subsequent life under Muslim rule as a “Serbian Golgotha.” A similar phrase, namely, “the Albanian Golgotha,” emerged out of the First World War. The Serbian army suffered heavy casualties as it retreated to Greece across the Albanian mountains. Commemorating the First World War as martyrdom and heroism of the Serbs comparable to the Kosovo battle, Patriarch Dimitrije Pavlović in 1918 used the phrase “Serbian Jerusalem” referring to the island Corfu in Greece where the Serbian army retreated during the war and recuperated for the liberation of Serbia. The Patriarch urged Serbs for holy journeys to the isle with memorials and military graveyard, like pilgrims go to Jerusalem.

After the First Balkan War of 1912 when Serbia militarily acquired Kosovo, the Serbian state for the first time in history presented Kosovo to the world as a holy land of the Serbs in order to legitimize military conquest. Church historian Dimitrije Bogdanović (in a book published in the 1980s), argues that the idea of Kosovo as a holy land of the Serbs claimed by Serbia before the world powers, was articulated after three Balkan wars in 1912-1913. The 1913 international conference in London, seeking settlement for the post-war Balkans, heard the following claims based on the historic and cultural rights of the Serbian ethnic minority in Kosovo against the Albanian ethnic majority: "It was rightly said (in the Serbian Memorandum to the ambassadors of the European Powers in London in 1913) that this territory is a kind of "Holy Land" for the Serbian people… In the negotiations about territories and borders in Kosovo and Metohija at the 1913 conference in London, Serbia prioritized the historic, ethnographic, cultural and moral criteria...."Yet, the London conference was by no means fascinated with the Serb sacred heritage and the mythical history in Kosovo, as Bogdanović implies. Neither did the Western powers take seriously the historic and cultural rights of the Serbs in Kosovo to endorse the annexation of Kosovo by Serbia. On the contrary, the world powers pursued Realpolitik by recognizing fait accompli established by Serbia’s military occupation of Kosovo. Concurrently, the London Conference (i.e. Britain and France), took into consideration Albanian nationalism and the Albanian ethnic majority in the neighboring parts of the Balkans, to recognize a newly established Albanian national state, the Kingdom of Albania.

The first published verbatim quote of the phrase “Serbian Jerusalem” referring to Kosovo as a holy land of the Serbs, is most likely a 1939 newspaper article by general Milan Nedić, the World War I hero and later the chief pro-Nazi collaborator presiding over a puppet regime in occupied Serbia.In June 1939, on the occasion of the 550th anniversary of the Kosovo battle, General Nedić wrote an article in the daily Politika about the Kosovo legacy as inspiration for the present. Nedić hoped for a massive resistance to the impending Nazi invasion, so he urged Serbs to invoke the example of the hero Miloš Obilić, the sultan’s assassin amidst the Kosovo battle. According to Nedić, “today, as dark clouds gather in the skies of Europe, we Serbs are yet again returning to Kosovo, Serbian Jerusalem, and the eternal fountain of our vital stamina, to smell the red flowers on the heroes’ graves and inhale the fighting spirt of Obilić [who assassinated Sultan Murad I].” Nedić was no nationalist poet or writer; he was a military leader and he did not himself invent the “Serbian Jerusalem” metaphor. He probably borrowed it from sermons and speeches of the then increasingly influential religious nationalist and leading Serb theologian, later canonized saint of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Bishop of Žića, Nikolaj Velimirović.

To summarize, “Serbian Jerusalem” exemplifies the nationalist practice of the invention of tradition. The contemporary Serbian nationalist movement, focusing on the struggle for Kosovo as seeking weapons in history, religion, and tradition, presented Kosovo as a “cradle” of the nation and the original sacred center where medieval Serbian state was founded. Present-day Serb nationalism intentionally disregarded or “forgot” the primacy of the historic center of the medieval Serbian state which was outside Kosovo, and dwarfed the unquestionably major Serb saintly cult of Saint Sava, worshiped as the Church’s founder, the state’s co-founder and the religious mystic, Christian pilgrim, diplomat, and peacemaker. By contrast, contemporary nationalism, planning for mass mobilization, war, and the replacement of Yugoslavia by a Greater Serbia, prioritized the memory of the medieval empire, the militant saint Prince Lazar and the avenger of Kosovo, sultan [Murad I]’s assassin Milos Obilić. 

In addition to the invention of tradition, the contemporary Serbian nationalist movement operating within a globalizing world, espoused new religious practices such as notably religious nationalism. According to Roger Friedland, religious nationalism is “a set of discursive practices by which the territorial identity of a state and the cultural identity of the people whose collective representation it claims are constituted as a singular fact.”34 Religious nationalism calls for a new theocracy. It is an anti-liberal and anti-secular ideology influential since the 1970s that rejects the modern secular type of nationhood as a de-secularized community organizing state and territory according to religion and myth. Thus, according to Peter van der Veer’s research on contesting territorial claims and religious monuments in northern India, “sacred sites are the physical evidence of the perennial existence of the religious community and, by nationalist expansion, of the nation. … The history of shrines, as told in religious tales, and established by archeological evidence, is the history of the nation.” In the Balkans, religious nationalism, Dino Abazović explains, following the destruction of multiethnic Yugoslavia, assisted the formation of an ethnoconfessional type of nationality and based on this service, wants to influence politics to decide on the model of statehood and nationhood particularly opposing ethnoreligious pluralism and secularism.

In sum, Kosovo is not Serbia’s “cradle” but it symbolizes Serbia’s pre-modern “golden age.” The discourse about the “cradle” of the state that integrated the people and paved the way to nationhood combines two archetype nationalist myths: myth of ancient origins, and myth of rise and fall. According to Pål Kolstø’s 2005 study on ethnic nationalist myths in the Balkans, the key nationalist myths of the Balkan ethnic nations are the myth of antiquity (ancient origins, deep historic roots of the nation), and the myth of golden age (the state’s rise and expansion and In sum, Kosovo is not Serbia’s “cradle” but it symbolizes Serbia’s pre-modern “golden age.” The discourse about the “cradle” of the state that integrated the people and paved the way to nationhood combines two archetype nationalist myths: myth of ancient origins, and myth of rise and fall. According to Pål Kolstø’s 2005 study on ethnic nationalist myths in the Balkans, the key nationalist myths of the Balkan ethnic nations are the myth of antiquity (ancient origins, deep historic roots of the nation), and the myth of golden age (the state’s rise and expansion and if applicable, collapse and commemoration).37 The recent nationalist discourse needed both constitutive nationalist myths, namely the myth of the nation’s “cradle” (ancient origins) and of the golden age of its expansion and glory followed by a tragic yet not forgotten downfall, for contemporary purposes of mass mobilization aimed at reframing collective identity and restoring the past glory preferably within the boundaries of the medieval empire. The invention of tradition and the material evidence of the sacred heritage and religious symbols from the nation’s golden age, have overall served well the purpose of the Serb mass mobilization for the destruction of multiethnic Yugoslavia. Regarding the restoration of the empire (in contemporary parlance called Greater Serbia), the results have been less successful. The Serb republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina seems as the only palpable gain. Croatia emerged from the 1991-1995 Serb-Croat war militarily strong and furiously anti-Serbian with its Serb minority largely “cleansed.”

Kosovo eventually seceded from Serbia and the local Serbs have been largely “cleansed.” Although the sacred monuments are still there as reminders of the bygone empire and the enduring Serbia’s imperial ambitions, they could not prove that Serbs “got there first.” On the contrary, according to a number of impartial studies, the Albanians are presumably the indigenous residents of the Balkans, sometimes linked to the ancient Illyrians, whose ethnic name South Slavic nationalist movements had appropriated, settling in Kosovo and present-day Albania long before the Slavic migrations of the seventh to ninth centuries.38 However, the actual history is only one dimension of the Kosovo controversy. The Kosovo myth, as part of a “religion of Serbian nationalism” as Ivan Čolović describes it, have since the nineteenth century when Serbian secular and clerical elites began using it for state and nation-building, become an autonomous socio-cultural phenomenon creating representations of the past or present that often contradict reality.