Elizabeth Neumann served as the Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during the Bush Administration, and came back to the White House again in 2017 to serve in the Trump Administration. Her job was to counter emerging right-wing extremism, fueled by long-standing anger, resentment, white supremacism, and Christian nationalism. By April 2020, she had resigned from the Trump Administration. Citing a failure of leadership and his imperiling of American security, she signed an August 2020 statement with 130 other Republican national security officials, boldly stating in no uncertain terms that Trump was unfit for office. In this episode, Elizabeth opens up about this experience, told in her recent book *Kingdom of Rage: The Rise of Christian Extremism and the Path Back to Peace.* As a person of Christian faith with over two decades of experience in public service and national security, she offers a fascinating inside take on the inattention to domestic terrorism; she elucidates the emergence of a new and Christian extremism, grounded in rage and willing to take violent action; she explains the Jan 6 attack through the perspective of homeland security; and she reflects on Christian resources for responding to the chaotic, politicized anger characterized in right-wing extremism and how we might act as instruments of peace.
Elizabeth Neumann served as the Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during the Bush Administration, and came back to the White House again in 2017 to serve in the Trump Administration.
Her job was to counter emerging right-wing extremism, fueled by long-standing anger, resentment, white supremacism, and Christian nationalism. By April 2020, she had resigned from the Trump Administration. Citing a failure of leadership and his imperiling of American security, she signed an August 2020 statement with 130 other Republican national security officials, boldly stating in no uncertain terms that Trump was unfit for office.
In this episode, Elizabeth opens up about this experience, told in her recent book Kingdom of Rage: The Rise of Christian Extremism and the Path Back to Peace. As a person of Christian faith with over two decades of experience in public service and national security, she offers a fascinating inside take on the inattention to domestic terrorism; she elucidates the emergence of a new and Christian extremism, grounded in rage and willing to take violent action; she explains the Jan 6 attack through the perspective of homeland security; and she reflects on Christian resources for responding to the chaotic, politicized anger characterized in right-wing extremism and how we might act as instruments of peace.
About Elizabeth Neumann
Elizabeth Neumann served as the Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during the Bush administration, and came back to the White House again in 2017 to serve in the Trump Administration, publicly resigning in 2020. She is author of Kingdom of Rage: The Rise of Christian Extremism and the Path Back to Peace, and is a frequent guest on national news outlets, and the Chief Strategy Officer at Moonshot. She is based in the Denver, CO area.
Show Notes
Production Notes
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Visit us online at faith.yale.edu. My friends, Evan here. Before this episode today on rage and resentment, fear, and the way that it leads to violent extremism, domestic terrorism, it's yet another touch point for the meaning of a public faith during troubled times.
It seems like as we inch toward the 2024 general election, the feeling of that trouble just seems to get worse and worse. As my guest today suggests, politicians and media influencers love to exploit the emotions of anger and fear for marketing techniques. But what we're trying to do is the opposite. In this recent video curriculum series that Miroslav Volf walks through, Public Faith for Troubled Times, he casts a hopeful vision for how Christians can engage the public in a way that serves the common good, acting from a place of love.
And not fear. You can get access to those videos in a detailed discussion guide over at faith.yale.edu slash public. Now onto the episode.
Elizabeth Neumann: We have surveys that tell us 3 percent of adults in America believe that violence is justified to achieve their political aim. And they believe that that violence is necessary today. That's about 8 million people. Politicians. As media influencers, they have been telling us, like, the other side is going to do horrible things to you, to your family, to your faith, to what you think the community should be or the country should be.
Turns out that anger and fear are some of the most significant motivators to get us to vote, to get us to raise money, to speak out. It is a marketing technique. I think the church has the answers to the underlying drivers that mobilize people to violence. The reason why people radicalize in the first place, it's not the ideology.
The ideology plays a role, but it's not that the ideology was so amazing that it causes somebody to be like, yes, let's go commit an attack. The reason why they're open to that ideology is fundamentally psychosocial. It is unmet needs. It is a need for significance and need for belonging. By offering people the gospel, that they can anchor their hope in Jesus, it actually is a protective factor to prevent somebody from moving to these other ideologies.
And somewhere when we started to replace God's kingdom with America, and part of why it's so important that Christians are being catechized by the Bible, as opposed to this mythology of American greatness, is that violence is not the option. The Bible is teaching us our kingdom is not of this world, to put away our sword, turn the other cheek, to love our enemies.
Our way is not the way of violence.
Evan Rosa: This is For the Life of the World, a podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. I'm Evan Rosa with the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. What comes to mind when you hear the words terrorist, or homeland security, or violent extremism? Chances are that you're primed to think of a foreign threat.
The fear of an anti US government extremist as infiltrating the border from across the sea is closely tied to the post 9 11 world that we've lived in for the past two decades. And during that time, it was the same for the Department of Homeland Security. But what about the threats from within? Is it possible that violent extremism brewing inside our borders might pose a deeper, more existential threat to the United States?
My guest today found her way into public service at the turn of the century. First as a staffer for the Governor of Texas, and then in 2001 found herself serving in the White House under George W. Bush. Elizabeth Neumann served as the Assistant Secretary for Counter-Terrorism and Threat Prevention at the US Department of Homeland Security during the Bush administration, and came back to the White House again in 2017 to serve under Trump.
Her job then was to counter the emerging domestic right wing extremism, fueled by longstanding anger, resentment. White supremacism and Christian nationalism. By 2020, she had resigned from the Trump administration, setting a failure of leadership, his imperiling of American security, and much more. She signed an August 2020 statement with 130 other Republican national security officials, boldly stating in no uncertain terms that Trump was unfit for office.
In this episode, Elizabeth opens up about this experience, told in her recent book, Kingdom of Rage, the rise of Christian extremism and the path back to peace. As a person of faith with decades of civil service, she offers a fascinating insider take on the inattention to domestic terrorism. She elucidates the emergence of new Christian extremism, grounded in rage and willing to take violent action.
She explains the unsurprise of the Jan 6th attack through the perspective of homeland security. She talks about what we can do to start building protective factors to prevent future radicalization in our communities and what we can do to bring healing to broken spaces. She reflects on Christian resources such as lament, grief, and a hope in Christ that transcends the desire for American greatness, for responding to the chaotic, politicized anger characterized in right wing extremism, and how we might act as instruments of peace.
And one of the most important takeaways, I think, from Elizabeth's book and this conversation is calling out the emotional roots of our politics. The resentment there, the disgust, the fear, the melancholy, the despair, and the rage. It's incredibly difficult to work through all of that, but it's necessary if we're to find freedom and peace together.
Thanks for listening today.
Elizabeth Neumann, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast.
Elizabeth Neumann: Thank you so much for having me, Evan. I'm delighted to be able to join you.
Evan Rosa: So you've written a recent book, Kingdom of Rage, and it details your experience in the Department of Homeland Security and paying attention to the threats that face America at the security level, but fascinating to be looking at it through this political and religious lens.
So I'm hoping to start with a biographical sketch I'm wondering if you can share a little bit about your faith journey, but how that led you into public service and brought you to where you are today.
Elizabeth Neumann: I was raised in a Christian home. I grew up in North Texas, so Bible Belt, heart of evangelicalism, and, and, Attended mostly non denominational churches.
I kind of call myself an evangelical mutt because I just have been in lots of different circles but mainly on the theologically conservative side. And the beautiful thing about being in lots of different communities is you really start to see the people. Beauty of the body of Christ and the different communities bring or emphasize slightly different aspects of the gospel, and there's a lot of beauty in that.
So that's definitely the backdrop for me. I gravitate towards the more nerdy churches, like the longer sermons. I didn't realize that wasn't normal until. Later in life, my parents really emphasized reading scripture, staying in the word. They emphasized reading the total text, being in Bible study. So that's the frame from which I come.
Evan Rosa: I'm wondering if you can add in that public service dimension, and in particular, the way you describe the last 20 years of your life. You say really studying the drivers behind And so I, what, tell us a little bit about your professional life and then I'd love to hear from you how those two link up.
Elizabeth Neumann: I might even back up and go to middle school and high school, a Christian school in North Dallas and had some amazing Bible teachers and government teachers who really inspired me to view public service as one way in which we can live out our faith.
There weren't too many people in. my school that thought government was cool, but that was definitely something that I caught the bug early and went to the University of Texas when I was in college. And just so happened that a guy named George W. Bush was running for governor for a second time and I got to work on the campaign.
Then he decided to run for president and I got to work on that campaign and that just opened a door to come to Washington, D. C. and not just grab a random job. I actually got to work for the president of the United States, which is very much not something that I could have orchestrated or planned, right?
It just was kind of one of those things that was an amazing opportunity. And I initially worked on the faith based and community initiatives, which was some people might remember George W. Bush's compassionate conservative agenda. And I really was. I really believed that we could remake government and adhere to the principles of federalism.
And I was a conservative and I wanted more things pushed to the states and wanted more churches and nonprofit organizations to be involved in caring for our communities. And that's where I, you know, as a young staffer, that's where I poured my energy. And then 9 11 happened. Um, and I was in DC and I kind of.
Came to this place where I was like, Lord, use me however you want me to be used. But I just want to make sure that America never faces a day like that again. And that kind of changed my trajectory. There were opportunities to start working for the Homeland Security field, which became like the new thing after 9 11.
And I joined the Homeland Security Council and ended up joining the domestic terrorism unit for the Homeland Security Council. And that's kind of What I've been doing ever since, focusing on the homeland side of counterterrorism, so the law enforcement, the intelligence information sharing that needs to happen.
And I was in and out of Washington a number of times over the last 20 years, but still by and large focused on And I was asked to come in to the Trump administration in 2017. I initially said no, and eventually was kind of persuaded that they needed help and kind of mission oriented. It pulled on my heartstrings.
So I started working. And one of the things that had happened, And I think the thing that's been, um, quite remarkable in the shift was while we were still focused on threats overseas, like ISIS, we started seeing other stuff that didn't quite add up. Um, Charlottesville was that, that big moment where we were like, we have Nazi, like Nazis openly walking through a college campus.
What is that about? And, you know, turn to my government colleagues that work on the intelligence side. What does this mean? Is this new? Is this, you know, how does this compare to what we've seen the last few years? Cause I've been out of government and it was really tough because nobody could tell us because they had not been focusing on domestic violent extremist threats.
And it took a while, took, I would say 18 months to two years for the community to go, Oh no, There is something new here. This is not good. We have a problem on our hands. You know, some of those key moments included the attack in Pittsburgh at the Tree of Life Synagogue. That was October of 2018. Then you had Christchurch, New Zealand, that was in March of 2019.
And that was kind of when we were like, Oh, this isn't just a U. S. problem. So we call it domestic, right? But it is fair to say that we outsource a lot of these ideologies and are influencing other parts of the globe, but they are in fact, global ideologies. White supremacism and anti-government extremism.
Um, yeah, and it really wasn't until that 2019 moment you have that El Paso Walmart shooting that the lights are blink, blinking red. At that point, we have a major problem on our hands.
Evan Rosa: Okay. So you're describing your role of basically. Becoming attuned and aware of domestic threats, do you think of them as as domestic terrorism?
Do you think of it as a kind of violence that's brewing from within? How does the Department of Homeland Security try to understand the threats to America from within?
Elizabeth Neumann: So when I was inside government, One of the things that I found extremely frustrating as a policymaker was that our intelligence apparatus, and these are the people that are supposed to be analyzing threats.
And so we use the term intelligence because that's what we call that community, but it's not like we're spying on Americans, right? What I'm looking for is Tell me based on legitimately collected information, what is happening domestically? Do we have a graver threat now than we did say a year ago? Why does that matter to a policymaker?
Because if there is a change in the threat, you need to be changing your policies. You need to be changing your resourcing. You need to be setting new priorities. And we were having these conversations about, you know, the tools that we use. for overseas threats, for foreign terrorist organizations. They don't work domestically.
We don't have the ability to go scoop up data when people are talking on their phones. We don't do that for Americans because it's a violation of our constitution. So, a simple example, when you can designate somebody a foreign terrorist organization, it means that anybody providing any sort of support, like the bar is really low, it's called material support to Anybody that is providing material support to terrorism, say to ISIS, you could do that low level activity in support of a neo Nazi group here in the United States, same act, one is criminal, one is not.
One is, you know, defined by law as being, you know, you can't do that. We can arrest you. The other, we have no way to designate domestic terrorist groups. So there's, there were ongoing, and there still should be, quite frankly, there are ongoing conversations about, do we need changes in law? Do we need changes?
There was definitely a recognition we needed changes in resources, but all of that backdrop makes it really hard for a government agency to do very much in this space other than being able to say, yes, we are opening investigations. The purview of the FBI, like the FBI can, you know, if they see legitimate criminal activity, they can open an investigation, they can disrupt attacks, they can prosecute, like.
Those tools are being used and they're doing a great job, in my opinion, of tracking where threats are morphing, but we don't have the ability to counter it through those law enforcement tools as strongly as we quite need to, which is kind of what led me, after I, I left the government to start digging and start reading more from the communities that had been targeted with hate crimes that to try to understand the nature of this threat.
And I, it led me to this big discovery that, oh my gosh, this threat has been with us for quite a long time. Now I knew about the 1980s and 1990s and the white power movements and the militia groups. It, what I mean when I say this threat has been with us all along is if you look at the attacks. The plots, the deaths in this country at the hands of domestic violent extremists, going back to the early 1990s to present with the exception of 9 11, which was, you know, of a size and scale we've never seen before.
So take 9 11. out. More deaths, more attacks, more plots are coming from domestic violent extremists that have come from foreign terrorist organizations and those that they just inspired domestically. And yet we had spent 20 years focused only on Al Qaeda and ISIS. And so there was this big aha moment for me that I, you know, if I told you, if I told you there were 8 million people with allegiance to ISIS in this country, I think there would be collective panic, right?
I mean, we have on at least, you know, certain, certain people love to squawk about, Oh, there was some, there was a known and suspected terrorist that came across our border and it took a few months for ICE to find them and deport them. You know, people panic about one. If I told you there were 8 million, wouldn't we all panic?
Why I use that number because we have, uh, surveys that tell us there are 3 percent of adults in America believe that violence is justified to achieve their political aim. And they believe that that violence is necessary today. That's about 8 million people. We do not have enough law enforcement in this country to deal with a threat of that size.
Now, before everybody panics, because that's not my goal here, most people who cognitively accept or believe that violence is necessary are not actually going to mobilize to violence. But it is impossible to know who, what of that small percentage that do. So that's why this threat is so challenging. It's unheard of numbers in terms of scale and scope that are embracing this idea that violence is justified, violence is needed, and yet we don't have the tools, and I'm not advocating That I'm not looking for minority report where the government can read your mind.
That's not what I'm advocating for, but I just, I want people to understand this is a very difficult problem because we don't have the tools to be able to detect and know which of those 8 million are actually going to go and commit an act of terrorism. That's the problem we face today is a pretty significant number of people in our country who embrace violence as an option.
Because we don't talk about it, because we're not aware of it, the very people that could do something about it, which I kind of lay on the book is us, they're not even aware that this is a problem and they're not aware of what they could do about it. And that's why I wrote the book. I think not only can we do that, I think the church is well equipped for that.
I think the church has the answers to the underlying drivers that mobilize people to violence. So, It's not a, it's not a message or a book about look at all the bad stuff that's happening in our world. There is some bad stuff, but the purpose is to equip people with the knowledge so that they can actually bring peace to our communities.
Evan Rosa: Yeah. The book is very clear insofar as it's an encouragement and it's a support and it's seeking to appeal. to those who want to experience a democracy that is, that is peaceful. Elizabeth, I'd love for you to connect the dots here between the 20 years that follow 9 11, all of that attention on foreign terrorism.
All of that, basically ignoring what was happening at home. And then give us a picture of how things were for you in 2020 and 2021 and how you experienced a perspective shift.
Elizabeth Neumann: Yeah. I, in 2020, I left the Trump administration and It, COVID had just set in the Trump administration, serving in the Trump administration was really hard.
I spent a good two months kind of decompressing and just focusing on my kids and taking walks and trying to process everything I had. gone through. And when I kind of came out of that was right around the time that we were seeing massive protests related to the murder of George Floyd and, you know, the pushing back on law enforcement in general.
And then we also were experiencing protests on COVID mandates, right? Like the world was just kind of in flames and which I will say, I was still in government when COVID was about to start and before we all went into lockdown, we actually, I actually commissioned my staff to go and tell me Are we going to see more violence because of this?
And they came back based on all of the data that we know about why people move towards extremism and mobilize to violence. It was pretty clear we were going to see difficult times ahead. And I think that's borne out sadly in some of the data. So on one hand, it wasn't a surprise to me that we were so inflamed and that there was so much expressed, a lot of it righteous anger, I shall say.
But What shocked me, and it shouldn't have at that point, but what shocked me was the way in which Trump was using that moment to try to get himself reelected. So he was make, making assertions that the, the protests were turning into riots and that it was because of Antifa. He directed the attorney general to designate Antifa at terrorist organization.
One, there is no statute that allows us to designate domestic groups. Two, Antifa is not a group, it's a movement. It's kind of one of those weird things when you look at left wing violent extremism because they tend to have anarchist streaks. Anarchists don't believe in organizations. So there's not really like a, an organization to designate.
Three, Antifa wasn't a problem in most of these spaces. There, there are. People associated with that movement in certain parts of the country, but it's fairly small and it wasn't the cause behind the places where we had protests and then we had counter protests and there was violence. It was not Antifa.
Four, we had been trying to have this conversation about domestic terrorism for well over a year. And had been told, had been shut down. I mean, I had two secretaries trying to raise it to the national security advisor. They were given the Heisman and said, we can't talk about domestic terrorism. He won't talk about it.
When I was trying to get funding for some of the work that the department was doing to combat domestic terrorism, and we were actually successful in getting that funding after the El Paso attack, the conversation I had with The, it was the deputy chief of staff of the White House was this is really good.
We're going to move this forward. We are going to talk about it as violence prevention because we can't use the term domestic terrorism. And I was like, Hey, that's fine. But I'm going to call it what it is. It is domestic terrorism. So. This pattern and practice of we don't acknowledge that there's a problem with domestic terrorism.
We don't call anything domestic terrorism for at least two years during my time in government. And then all of a sudden Antifa is a domestic terrorist of 2020. And then he deployed various law enforcement entities to go protect monuments. You know, then there was the deployment of the border patrols.
The border patrol has a special forces unit that uses the very advanced and do really important things worldwide to keep us safe. They deployed them to Portland. It was, in my view, what, and I actually don't know where the court cases ended up. I believe it was unconstitutional, what he did, because the border patrol is not supposed to operate outside of a 90 mile radius of our border.
So there were a number of things that you just were like, Oh my gosh, the guardrails are off. You know, we're starting to see authoritarian I, I was in the room with Trump a few times. Mostly I supported people that were in the room with him a lot. And I would hear the stories of some of the things he would suggest.
And they were kind of crazy. They were like, you know, off the wall, like we should put alligators and moats. We should have people shoot people from the border wall if they're trying to come across things that like are illegal, unconstitutional. And, but it was never able to go anywhere because there were people in the room that would redirect or.
Just tell him no, and he would listen. And what happened in that summer of 2020 was, oh, he's not listening anymore. Oh, there's nobody in the room anymore to tell him no. And oh, no, this is gonna go bad really fast. And it did. And to the point where, by the time we get to the fall, You have violent extremists actively feeling empowered by the president of the United States.
Now, some might argue that they were empowered the entire entirety of the presidency. That's probably true. But there, there was a particular moment where he was saying things and they were acting on them pretty quickly. President said, we should do this. We, we should do this. Okay, let's go show up and protest at our state capital wearing our military fatigues and carrying around automatic rifles.
The president says, stand back, stand by. Okay. We're standing back and standing by. So they were, we were starting to see both in the online space and then in offline practical ways that he could say things and they were responding to it as if it was like militarychainofcommand, which is very dangerous, um, and kind of led us to this moment in the post election space where we did see a number of activities leading up to January 6th.
So before you even get to January 6th, there was the Governor Whitmore plot. Right? We have militia that tried to go patrol election sites. We had militia trying to go and oversee ballot counts. Like they, they were taking it upon themselves to, at the very least, conduct intimidating behavior, which is not allowed during an election process, but possibly violent behavior.
And so as that's all bubbling up, you're kind of seeing the writing on the wall. We're going to see violence here. We're going to, we're going to see something go really wrong. And, and so on one hand, January 6th was not a surprise. On the other hand, it was a devastating moment for me to see the security failure.
Everything from, I don't know why the Capitol police weren't better prepared for what had been telegraphed online was going to be a pretty challenging day to for 20 years, we have been trying to make sure we never have an attack on our institutions, on our country, on our people from terrorists. Thanks.
And instead of worrying about ISIS and Al Qaeda, it turns out we really needed to be worried about the threat from within. And so that whole year was this moment of me having to grapple with my preconceived notions of what the threat was and realizing. that we, I'm not saying that ISIS and Al Qaeda aren't a concern.
They are. We took our eye off of the fact that there are people in our own country who think that violence is okay. And we haven't been actively denouncing that and pushing back against that. And in not doing that, they've actually been able to come and enter into the mainstream of the conversation and radicalize other people in the process.
Evan Rosa: I'm wondering if you'd share a little bit more for the audience, just another minute or two. about that, just that, because I think we skipped over a little bit about your decision to leave the Trump administration and how that preceded the January 6th attack. Would you be willing to share a little bit about what motivated your decision?
Elizabeth Neumann: It's there were multiple threads. One was, uh, I had young kids at the time. We decided to move to Washington. My husband and I made a deal that it would only be for two years. He graciously agreed to a third year because I was actively working on some domestic terrorism programs and policy and resources, and I was able to get that done in that third year.
And so once that kind of wrapped up in 2019, I started looking to depart. I also had this moment, I think somebody asked me, somebody was like, are you voting for Trump in 2020? And I was like, Like, it wasn't even, I didn't have to think, like, nobody had, I hadn't thought about it before, but it was like, guttural, instinctual, like, this is a dangerous person.
He is not fit for the office. He doesn't have the competence or the character for it. No, I can't vote for him again.
Evan Rosa: And did you say that from within? I mean, you said that as a current employee of the administration.
Elizabeth Neumann: Yes. And look, I had been a political appointee in the George W. Bush administration. I have a pretty high view of what it means to be a political appointee.
You are serving at the pleasure of the president. He was the duly elected president. for joining us. Those red lines were, you know, I'm not doing anything immoral and I'm not doing anything illegal or unconstitutional. Never thought that that was going to be something that I had to test, but I did frequently.
I would have to push back on things that were immoral, illegal, or unconstitutional. The other thing that was happening in 2019 is people started getting pushed out. So Kirshen Nielsen was our secretary. She got pushed out. Our general counsel, John Mitnick, would not bless illegal things. And so they pushed him out, like they fired him.
Evan Rosa: We talk about these presidential personnel interviews that look like they're there to test loyalty.
Elizabeth Neumann: Yes. Um, so right around the time that I am, I'm like, I need to get out. I get pulled into the chief of staff's office, acting chief of staff at the time. And he tells me it's time for me to go, which I had been expecting.
But part of the reason, it was kind of this weird conversation because they were happy for me to stay and go do something else. They just didn't want me to be in my role because I oversaw the Muslim travel ban, not the original. And the one that had been redone and blessed by the Supreme Court as being constitutional.
And my team, we had intentionally been very rigorous in how we set it up. And there actually were some security benefits to what we had set up, and we were advocating to use it as a way to advance security measures, not as a way to ban people from coming to the country. Well, Stephen Miller didn't like that.
And I was not recommending enough countries to be banned. And so I was getting pushed aside. They wanted to put somebody else in there so that they could have more countries get banned. I'm trying to make this shift over to somebody else's office temporarily so I can find a job. And in the process of doing that, I get told that there's a new presidential personnel guy in charge, and that In order to stay, I'm going to have to go through an interview process again.
Everybody was going to have to go through it. In fact, people that stayed in their current roles later that summer of 2020 went through interviews again. You're like, there's four months left in the administration. Why are you interviewing people? It was to tee up for the second term. And so that for me was like, yeah, no, I'm not going to lie.
I don't, I am not loyal to this guy, but that's, that was what was happening in that period. Period where you, it was not about the policy, it was not about competence. It was, do you idolize Donald Trump? Are you loyal to Donald Trump? Will you, how far will you go for Donald Trump? And that was kind of it.
The writing was on the wall, was time to be out.
Evan Rosa: So I think there's like a professional bit of information that I think is interesting and would be curious to, to hear from you about in your role. It does get politicized here, but you're just serving the duly elected president, whoever gets elected. And it's much less about the party politics and alignment.
Is it, am I getting that right?
Elizabeth Neumann: Yeah, you're actually, there's a law called the Hatch Act, which prohibits all federal employees, including political appointees, from engaging in political activity. So you're not allowed, for example, we weren't allowed to wear MAGA hats, not that I would have, but people were not allowed to wear MAGA hats on government property.
You can't. display campaign buttons. The person that usually gets the most in trouble for the Hatch Act is the press secretary. And both administrations, you know, all administrations struggle with this because you're performing a government function as the press secretary of the White House, you're representing the government, and yet you're often asked questions that are political or campaign in nature.
And so it's a tough line to walk. Yeah. So you're there serving the people of the United States, not the president himself, if that makes sense.
Evan Rosa: It does make sense. And yet it does seem that, and I think I just want to check this against prior administrations, but was your experience that there was a heightened effort to increase political party loyalty to Trump from within that particular job line?
Elizabeth Neumann: It was so good that I had the George W. Bush administration experience because it gave me grounding and like, this is what normal is. And I'm not talking about the policies, I'm just talking about the way in which you were expected to conduct yourself as a political appointee. It was drilled into us. You are here to serve the American people.
I remember walking into the Oval Office for my departure photo with the president, had my family with me. And of course, it was my first time in the Oval Office. I was enamored. I was like, Oh, so wonderful to serve you, Mr. President. And he, George W. Bush, looks me in the eye and says, you did not serve me.
You serve the American people. That was the thing that was kind of drilled into our heads that this is not about you. This is about. serving the American people. That was, it was the exact opposite in the Trump administration. It was not about serving the American people. It was about serving Donald Trump.
You know, part of my job in the Trump administration, I was one of the more senior political appointees. So having that experience allowed me to, Hope serves as a buffer a bit to those that worked for me and to try to train them in, hey, we're here serving the American people. It's not like one person or, and there were a number of us that had served during Bush and we all tried.
It's not like we could completely counteract the message coming from the top, but we really did try to instill in those that were working in the Department of Homeland Security. This is a sacred mission and this is about the country. This is not about the person of Donald Trump.
Evan Rosa: So I want to really want to make sure that we can get into how Christianity gets radicalized.
I mean, you make the point that there's this big shift personally, where as opposed to the foreign attack as coming from this foreign religion to see Christian America, to see America as a Christian nation. which is that Christian nationalist mindset. And I really connected with your depiction of that, the shock when you find that the sources of violence, the sources of extremism, and the sources of real threat to America are coming from mouths that sound like they're just quoting the Bible and praying to the same God that I pray to.
And I wonder if you would comment on exploring this side of radicalization and extremism that emerges from within a Christian mindset.
Elizabeth Neumann: So, I use a definition of extremism that says that when an in group perceives a threat to its success or survival by an out group, and hostile action is necessary. And if I can take the first part of that definition, the threat to your group's success or survival, one of the things that I have come to the conclusion is that's the nature of our politics pretty consistently for the last few decades.
Media influencers, they will have been telling us, like the other side is going to do horrible things to you, to your family, to your faith, to your, to what you think the community should be or the country should be and why? Because. Turns out that anger and fear are some of the most significant motivators to, to get us to vote, to get us to raise money, to speak out.
It, it is a marketing technique, anger and fear work. So it's been with us for quite some time. Like every election we get told this is the most consequential election of our lifetime. It's an existential threat. It's the other side wins. And when you're constantly saturated in that, Then when somebody comes along and nudges us a little bit further and starts suggesting that the action therefore is not just to go vote or to give me money, the action is we also need to be prepared to defend ourselves.
The action is we might need to take hostile action. It's not a huge leap.
Evan Rosa: Yeah. And it sounds like there's a new plausibility structure that's being created as well. It's making the violence more plausible. And as you described earlier, it's a shocking number, 8 million people who believe that if needed, that violence would be a fitting response.
All you need then is to turn that belief into action is that. is that final step toward plausibility?
Elizabeth Neumann: That's exactly right. And certainly when you look back in history, like, you can go back to the American Revolution, right? Like we have a kind of a built into our DNA, this idea of, you know, I, I don't want to be told what to do.
And if I don't like what government authority is making me do, I'm going to push back against it. There's a part of who we are that already allows us to have some plausibility that violence might be necessary from time to time. And part of why it's so important that Christians are being catechized. by the Bible as opposed to this mythology of American greatness is that violence is not the option.
The Bible is teaching us our kingdom is not of this world. To put away our sword, as Jesus told his disciples the night that he was arrested, you have Jesus telling Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world. And if it, if it were like, I wouldn't be sitting in front of you. Like my, my, I could call upon my father and send the angels.
Today, right? There's so many examples. Turn the other cheek to love our enemies. Like our way is not the way of violence. And somewhere when we started weaving together the Bible and the cross, we kind of started to replace God's kingdom with America. And I mean, Again, Christians throughout the millennia have made mistakes here where they felt like they needed to go and defend Christianity, the crusades, the inquisitions, like horrific things have been done supposedly in the name of Jesus.
So in some ways what we're dealing with is not new, but it's all the more important for us to. be teaching scripture as it actually is and not, not making our gospel about America, not making our gospel about holding on to the way of life that we have enjoyed. And maybe to pull on that thread a bit, going back to the definition of extremism, things have rapidly changed in our country.
It is fair to say that 50 years ago, if you attended church and claimed Jesus as your savior, you were the majority of the country, or at least you were in fellowship. Maybe not everybody shared those beliefs, but that's what they would publicly say, right? Everybody would kind of show up, go to church because that's what you did.
That was what was expected. And that has changed. We are not a country of church going people anymore. We are not a society that adheres to Christian values and virtues anymore. And For some, that feels really scary. And I empathize with that. We have gone through a lot of rapid change. There are a lot of frustrating things that are happening in local schools or what we're seeing, the protests that we're seeing on college campuses, in some places that cross the line into violence and intimidation.
There are no shortage of things that are disturbing, but The Bible gives us an answer to that. The Bible gives us many answers to that, actually. One of the answers is not, and therefore, I've got to go defend my Christian values through violence. And somewhere along the way, we've had both people in the church as well as political voices, including, you know, And we've had extremists, like it's this convergence.
It's not just one group that's come in and started to radicalize people. It's the convergence of media influencers being the primary influence in our life instead of scripture. It's politicians that have come in. and have their own ulterior motives for trying to motivate people towards grievance. It is extremists who have their own ideology at play.
And all of these things have come together to create extremist narrative or grievances. And we're not talking about the majority of Christians. But there are a small number of people that all are vulnerable to it. So when you tell them their way of life is changing, that Christianity is under attack, they are looking for something to give them certainty, something to give them safety and security.
And that's where you end up with extremist narratives that come in and say, okay, What we need to do is we need to take up arms. We need to be able to defend ourselves. We need to carry out an attack because if Donald Trump is not our president, then we're going to lose our country. And that's, that's how it happens because we aren't trusting in what Jesus tells us is the answer, which is one, we are to expect trials and suffering.
We are people who are supposed to be leading by peace and not. by the sword. And he gave us the warning to expect the suffering that we would be persecuted. And so as we're experiencing this rapid change, and I'm not saying it's an easy answer, we shouldn't be surprised the world is turning against that.
We were told to expect that. Um, and I can, you can grieve it. You can grieve that the world has changed. You can grieve that you can't be as open about your faith without getting criticized. There's nothing wrong with being sad about that. It is wrong when you think the answer is to fix it through force, through violence.
Evan Rosa: So, I mean, you've talked about exploiting the cross, you've talked about this feeling like the fate of Christianity is on one's shoulders, and how these feelings of fear and anxiety are continually fueled by the political media machine as well. I'm wondering if, from your perspective, as someone who's trying to, you know, It's got this background in managing Homeland Security and considering the ways that we might keep America a peaceful community.
What are the prospects for keeping it a peaceful community? I know you have this call to your primary audience for this book, which is believing Christians who you call exiles, people who might feel forgotten, left out alone, as you describe yourself, more politically homeless, exiled. I wonder if we could close by discussing some of those ways that you hope to see a change on that front and what can be done at a local level, at a personal community level, family level and individual level.
Elizabeth Neumann: So in part two of the book, I kind of dive into what we can do to start building protective factors to prevent future radicalization in our communities and within ourselves, as well as what we can do to bring healing. in the spaces that are broken right now. And at least in the church communities that I come from, there's a lot of brokenness.
There are a lot of exhausted pastors and Christian leaders, and everybody's looking at this next election cycle and with dread that we have to do this again. And, you know, family dynamics have been hurt. It's been hard. It's been very hard. And walking through this again faithfully shouldn't be taken lightly.
say that before I say this next thing, which is as dark as our present moment is as a country or as a church, I genuinely believe that the church has answers here for bringing healing to our communities. And I don't say that in a pat way. I actually say that from, I've spent at least six or seven years diving into the research about what can prevent people from radicalizing.
And Why people radicalize. And we have all this rich literature and academics, and this is all coming from, you know, the, how do we counter violent extremism, academic research and practitioner community. So they're not looking at it through a Christian lens, but they're telling us the reason why people radicalize in the first place.
The ideology plays a role, but it's, it's not that the ideology was so amazing that it causes somebody to be like, yes, let's go commit an attack. The reason why they're open to that ideology is fundamentally psychosocial. It is unmet needs. It is a need for significance and need for belonging. I'm slightly oversimplifying.
There are a lot of complex factors, but for our purposes, It is primarily those two things. People seek out that ideology because they're looking for significance and they're looking for belonging. We as the church have those answers. We have answers for significance. We have answers for belonging. It's not that those answers come easily, but one of the keys here is we have to recommit to deeply forming as disciples.
to go digging those deep roots. The suffering is going to come, the trials are going to come, but Jesus tells us that he has already overcome the world. And if we are anchoring ourselves, our need, our significance, our belonging in Christ, then we can endure that suffering in those trials without a need for those other ideologies.
That, that off claim to offer you solutions. They claim to say, I can fix this crisis that you're in, but they end up empty. They do not actually meet the needs. And that's the thing that I am hoping, like when I talk to pastors about this and I, I start connecting dots, they already knew this. like the scriptures already told them, but it's empowering them to go, Oh, I didn't realize it actually is this important that by offering people the gospel, that, that, that they can anchor their hope in Jesus.
It actually is a protective factor to prevent somebody from moving to these other ideologies. So I, in one hand, part two of the book is telling you things you as a believer already know, And you already believe, but it also, I hope, encourages you to double down on those things, to really invest in both our personal sanctification and diving deep, but also our communities, whether you're a parent and you're forming your children and, and, and raising them to know the Lord, or you're engaging in your community to be able to encourage other people in your church to really follow.
The Lord and love the Lord, that matters. And I do think that part of the reason we are so vulnerable as a church is because we kind of got distracted from keeping the main thing the main thing.
Evan Rosa: And you referred to the psychosocial, to the emotional backdrop, as opposed to the ideological or rational backdrop.
And it seems to me very fitting. It seems very intuitive that extremism, violent extremism in particular, can't run alone on ideas. It can't run alone on reason is an appeal to the deep emotions and to the deep shared emotional realities at the social level that begin to operate. So this feeling of unmet needs and the rage that Can come from that, the deprivation.
Mm-Hmm. or the loneliness being ostracized, being marginalized. There is a deep root of rage that seems to lie beneath extremism, and I'm hoping that you can comment on those emotional factors that need to be dealt with prior to. And then laying out again, all those, all the reasonable and policy based principles that we might talk about for moving forward that you could recommend.
Elizabeth Neumann: Jonathan Haidt wrote a book, The Righteous Mind from, I want to say 2007. And he lays out that our initial gut reactions to things are actually emotional. And then we fill in a rational reason for why we think the answer is X instead of Y. Yeah.
Evan Rosa: Yeah.
Elizabeth Neumann: And in recognizing that it can empower us to be more cautious when we make snap judgments, but also humbles us a bit because we, especially in the Western world, we love the rational mind.
We love building our logic flows, but really it's not the logic that led us to something. It's, it's a compilation of our experiences, our emotions, and, um, it's, it's why critical thinking is such an important skill, especially in today's world, um, because we're constantly bombarded with marketing and with, um, uh, other messages.
Social media is like the worst of it, right? That is designed to evoke an emotional reaction from us. And we're saturated in things that are in, especially in the social media context, actually designed to make us angry. There are studies that show that we feel angrier than people did 20 years ago. We are Just at a perpetual state of some form of anger.
That's not healthy, but also from a Christian perspective, we're told to put away anger. We're told to put it all away. And yet it's hard to do that when we're operating in an environment that's actually Designed to try to trigger anger in us, arguably in our politics, that's also another space where the influencers, the politicians, they're trying to keep you angry.
The news media, they're trying to keep you angry because you're give you them money and when you are angry, it's just such a strong emotion that that drives behavior that leads to them making money off of you.
Evan Rosa: It's also fascinating how to put away anger without first dealing with it. Without first understanding it, without first seeing it, and really coming to terms with it, it's just rife with opportunity for it to corrode the individual from the inside and completely lead toward a more public expression of rage.
Elizabeth Neumann: Yeah, no, I love that you're pulling that thread. One of the things that I encourage in the book is that we need to be better at lament, and we need to grieve in a biblical way. It allows the spirit to do work in our heart to help us see, oh, maybe that was not something that I needed to hold on to. Maybe
And so often what anger actually is a reflection of one of our idols has gotten tampered with. Tim Keller just does a remarkable job exploring these themes of idolatry and how anger is the emotion that gets triggered when one of our idols has been interfered with. And so if and when we're feeling a sense of anger, that's one of the.
First things to maybe pray about is, okay, I'm angry. What's the underlying, it's a surface emotion, right? It kind of masks what might actually be going on. And so digging deep, giving yourself time and space and asking the Holy Spirit to reveal it, you might find that what actually is going on is you're sad or you're hurt or you're scared.
And then you can bring that forward and ask the Lord to help you deal with whatever that other more deep emotion actually is that needs tending to.
Evan Rosa: Yeah, I think the alternative to rage being a public expression of grief, public expressions of lament, it's providing that, that channel, that output for a healthy and yet difficult.
It's difficult because we don't reward very well expressions of grief, sadness, or public, public dealing with anger at a, in a healthy way. There's too much of a reward to Simply repress it, and we need to kind of create more plausibility for a healthy expression of it, I think, so that it doesn't become contempt, so that it doesn't become yes hatred so that it doesn't be so that it doesn't get expressed with violence, whether it's violent speech or physical action.
Elizabeth Neumann: And I, and I would, to add to that, say that like where there is righteous anger or where the lament is over something good that has been lost, that's where we can bring things to the Lord. And we can, like the Psalms are filled with David and other psalmists expressing to the Lord their anger. at why are we in these circumstances?
And we can bring that to the Lord and he can meet us in that space and help us. But I, I do think that part of the reason why we're dealing with the belief that violence is an option that the extremists embrace, is because we're not taking these things to the Lord. The world is changing. It is some of the grievances that I point out that kind of created the on ramp, if you will, to the extremism.
Some of them are made up. Some of them are exacerbated by politicians. Some of them are loosely based on facts, but some of them are very real. Some of them are actually really hard for us to grapple with. And that's where it's okay to take those to the Lord and ask for help. Like whether it's your struggle about your child is in a school that is now embracing a transgender ideology or your family has And all of those are very real things and things to struggle through and figure out.
We don't, we have an alternative to turning to politics to answer those. We can turn to Jesus. We can submit that before the Lord and cut out of that on the other side. You might still go do things that we might classify in the political realm, but your heart space coming into that, whether it's an advocacy or a volunteer action or a protest action, the way your heart is positioned when you carry that out matters because if your heart is driven by anger.
If your heart is driven by hate, that is where we end up crossing a line somewhere. Your heart's position in the space of whatever grievance you're dealing with really does matter.
Evan Rosa: You close the book talking about seeking the peace of the city and the characterization of Christians as peacemakers, I think really emerges from the text to inhabit it as a vocation, as a calling.
I'm curious if you would just close with a reflection on what it is to be a peacemaker and, and anything that you'd want to encourage. And I'm
Elizabeth Neumann: so excited that the book is done so that I can have conversations with people that are peacemakers in their community. I can't wait to hear because I've met in small spaces over the last two or three years, remarkable people doing remarkable work in their communities.
humble and quiet, and they're not on the national news and they're doing amazing things to transform their communities. So part of the thing I'm most looking forward to and being able to share this message is to hear how others are building peace in their community. It is the thing that as somebody that's been at the national policy level for 20 years, And maybe affecting a little bit of change, but everybody thinks, ah, national politics, that's where the big stuff happens.
I am more and more convinced it's not. I think real change happens at a one on one, at a heart level. And I think there are probably amazing people in our country that are doing some really exciting things to bring and effectuate that change in their local spaces. So that I'm not suggesting that if you're called to do something at a state level or a national level, go where God has called you, but there's something very sweet about it.
When you're in the presence of people who have really invested in their community and walked the day in, day out with people who are struggling, and I'm sure you've met people like this, especially if they're in their sixties or seventies, their face kind of glows in a way that feels like, Oh, you you've been, you know, Engaging with the face of God, like you're reflecting God's image in the way that you are caring for your community.
And that, I just find that so inspiring. Um, yeah, there's a lot, there is a lot of darkness in her. uh, country, but I, those are the faces that to me represent carrying out Jesus's mission and Jesus's love. And it tends to be in quiet spaces, but I, I hope the encouragement here is the way. The path forward is not only being careful about your own heart and doing the work that necessary work that you need to do to make sure you're not susceptible to some of these extremist tactics, but that you actually have the ability to go into your communities and build those protective factors.
And the way that we build those protective factors is by loving people and by offering them the dignity and the respect that they deserve. that comes from being a child of God and that then addresses both your belonging and your significance, right? And so you're building resilience in your community by offering that to others.
Evan Rosa: I would love to ask you to read one final thing. So on page 241, I'm wondering if you just read the final paragraphs of the book.
Elizabeth Neumann: This is our calling to be peacemakers. We are faithful even when we do not know. What God will do with our efforts. We trust Him, abide in Him, rest in Him, find our shalom in Him.
We dig deep roots, cultivate a flourishing garden, and seek the welfare of our neighborhood, our workplace, our community, our city. And when we do that, we guide our communities to the path of peace.
Evan Rosa: Elizabeth, thank you for bringing your expertise, bringing this really unique perspective that you. have cultivated in looking at some really dark aspects of life, of our country, and doing this work of transforming that learning into action. Really useful resources and perspective on how to get along, how to be one, and how to find peace today.
Thank you.
Elizabeth Neumann: Thank you, Evan.
Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured Elizabeth Neumann, production assistants by Alexa Rollow and Kacie Barrett. I'm Evan Rosa, and I edit and produce the show. For more information, visit us online at faith.yale.edu, where you can find past episodes, articles, books, and other educational resources that help people envision and pursue lives worthy of our humanity. If you're new to the show, remember to hit subscribe in your favorite podcast app so you don't miss an episode. And to our supporters and faithful listeners, please consider telling a friend or sharing an episode.
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