Is America a nation Chosen by God? A New Jerusalem and Shining City on a Hill? What is the shape of Christian Nationalism today? Now 4 years past Jan 6, 2021 and anticipating the next term of presidential office, Yale professors Eliyahu Stern and Philip Gorski join Evan Rosa for a conversation about religion, politics, and the shape of Christian nationalism now. Together they discuss what religion really means in sociological and historical terms; the difference between religions of power and religions of law or morality; the American syncretism of pagan Christianity (perhaps captured in the Qnon Shaman with the horns and facepaint); the connection between nationalism and the desire to be a Chosen People; the supersessionism at the root of seeing the Christian conquest of America as a New Jerusalem; and how ordinary citizens come to adopt the tenets of Christian Nationalism. Eliyahu Stern is Professor of Modern Jewish Intellectual and Cultural History in the Departments of Religious Studies and History and his current project is entitled *No Where Left to Go: Jews and the Global Right from 1977 to October 7.* Philip Gorski is Frederick and Laura Goff Professor of Sociology at Yale University and is author of *The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy* (with Samuel Perry) as well as *American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present.* Special thanks to our production assistant Zoë Halaban for pitching this conversation. About Eliyahu Stern Eliyahu Stern is Professor of Modern Jewish Intellectual and Cultural History in the Departments of Religious Studies and History. Previously, he was Junior William Golding Fellow in the Humanities at Brasenose College and the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford. He is the author of the award-winning, *The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism* (Yale University Press in 2012). His second monograph *Jewish Materialism: The Intellectual Revolution of the 1870s* (Yale University Press, 2018) details the ideological background to Jews’ involvement in Zionism, Capitalism, and Communism. His courses include The Global Right: From the French Revolution to the American Insurrection, Secularism: From the Enlightenment to the Present, Modern Jewish Intellectual History, The Holocaust in Culture and Politics. He has served as a term member on the Council on Foreign Relations and a consultant to the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland. Currently, he is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Center of Jewish History. His latest project is entitled No Where Left to Go: Jews and the Global Right from 1977 to October 7. About Philip Gorski Philip S. Gorski is a comparative-historical sociologist with strong interests in theory and methods and in modern and early modern Europe. He is Frederick and Laura Goff Professor of Sociology at Yale University. His empirical work focuses on topics such as state-formation, nationalism, revolution, economic development and secularization with particular attention to the interaction of religion and politics. Other current interests include the philosophy and methodology of the social sciences and the nature and role of rationality in social life. He’s author with Samuel L. Perry of *The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy*, as well as *American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present.* Show Notes - Trump: [“I’m a nationalist.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sazitj4x6YI&lc=UgwwZ2v5OF1a0ek8evx4AaABAg) - Increased ownership and proud identification as Christian Nationalism - Eliyahu Stern, *No Where Left to Go: Jews and the Global Right from 1977 to October 7* - The human practice of religion - “ The way one person will invoke Christianity will be something very different than say the way a church or the way another person or another religious figure is going to invoke that term.” - Humility and a leap - “ The History of the Sacred from Babylon to Beyoncé” - Religion vs “The Sacred” - ”Western nationalism itself is, the offspring of a Christian supersessionist appropriation of Judaism.” - “A new chosen people” - The Deep Story Philip Gorski tells in *The Flag and the Cross* - Pagan understandings of nationalism - “The Deep Story runs something like this. America was founded as a Christian nation. The founders were Orthodox Christians. The founding documents were based on quote, biblical principles or perhaps even divinely inspired. The United States has a special role to play. In history as an exceptional or chosen nation in order to carry out that mission, it's been blessed with unique power and prosperity. But the project, the mission, and also the prosperity and the power are all increasingly endangered by the presence of non-whites, non-native born people, non-Christians on American soil.” - Covenantal logic - The tendency to see oneself as “Chosen” - England, Netherlands claiming the mantle of Chosenness for political purposes - “Jews are sitting around the world and they're trying to figure out how to *unchosen* themselves.” - Supersessionism and the interpretation of the Old Testament - The Promised Land Story: American Conquest - The Exemplary Story: A Shining City on a Hill - How do we gather and absorb political narratives like Christian Nationalism? - How is Christian Nationalism passed on? - Larger network of international Christian Nationalisms - The Arms Race or Game of Thrones that Nationalisms assume - Russian Christian Nationalism and recovering a “Christian Civilization” - Christian Nationalism is a political strategy - “ I don't think anybody … believes for a second that Donald Trump, or Vladimir Putin, or for that matter, Viktor Orban are serious Christians by any reasonable definition of that term.” - “White-supremicism in more acceptable garb.” - Losers of free market economics - Free Market Capitalism and erosion of social bonds and relationships - Strong borders, blood and soil - Fear of immigrants - Trust - What is the deeply felt need of someone who comes to identify as a Christian Nationalist? - Human needs threatened by social instability and inequality - Lip service for the sake of power - What “Christian” does next to “Nationalism” - [Trump embraces Nationalism for himself](https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/22/trump-nationalist-926745) - Globalism vs Nationalism - Second Iraq War as a mistake - “Proponents are not religious in the conventional sense” - “ When we're talking about Christian nationalism, we have to first and foremost recognize that we're talking about a different understanding of Christianity than what Americans are accustomed to seeing as the dominant understanding of what that term signifies.” - The crucial distinction between Religions of Power and Religions of Morality - Powerful protector - “Modern-day Cyrus”—The comparison between Trump and the biblical figure of Cyrus - What is religion? What kind of religion is operative in Christian Nationalism? - ”It is not just centered in evangelicalism anymore.” - First Things and Catholic Integralism - New Apostolic Reformation - Dominion Theology - “This is about occupying institutions, seizing power, and using the state to impose a particular vision and a particular hierarchy.” - Jan 6, 2021 - Rising paganism in America - “How could Christians embrace Trump?” - Merging of Shamanism and Christianity on Jan 6 - Trancendental versus immanent versions of Christianity - Neo-paganism and magical understandings of the world - Concerns and hope as Trump takes office in January 2025 - Further toward the politics of grievance and victimization - “Trump as a backstop” - Israel’s reliance - Can Trump negotiate international peace? - “The cynical side of me says my greatest hope lies in Trump's failures.” - Hope for more careful, nuanced conversations about Christian Nationalism Production Notes - This podcast featured Eliyahu Stern and Philip Gorski - Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa - Hosted by Evan Rosa - Production Assistance by Zoë Halaban, Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, and Emily Brookfield - A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about - Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give
Is America a nation Chosen by God? A New Jerusalem and Shining City on a Hill? What is the shape of Christian Nationalism today?
Now 4 years past Jan 6, 2021 and anticipating the next term of presidential office, Yale professors Eliyahu Stern and Philip Gorski join Evan Rosa for a conversation about religion, politics, and the shape of Christian nationalism now.
Together they discuss what religion really means in sociological and historical terms; the difference between religions of power and religions of law or morality; the American syncretism of pagan Christianity (perhaps captured in the Qnon Shaman with the horns and facepaint); the connection between nationalism and the desire to be a Chosen People; the supersessionism at the root of seeing the Christian conquest of America as a New Jerusalem; and how ordinary citizens come to adopt the tenets of Christian Nationalism.
Eliyahu Stern is Professor of Modern Jewish Intellectual and Cultural History in the Departments of Religious Studies and History and his current project is entitled No Where Left to Go: Jews and the Global Right from 1977 to October 7.
Philip Gorski is Frederick and Laura Goff Professor of Sociology at Yale University and is author of The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy (with Samuel Perry) as well as American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present.
Special thanks to our production assistant Zoë Halaban for pitching this conversation.
About Eliyahu Stern
Eliyahu Stern is Professor of Modern Jewish Intellectual and Cultural History in the Departments of Religious Studies and History. Previously, he was Junior William Golding Fellow in the Humanities at Brasenose College and the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford. He is the author of the award-winning, The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism (Yale University Press in 2012). His second monograph Jewish Materialism: The Intellectual Revolution of the 1870s (Yale University Press, 2018) details the ideological background to Jews’ involvement in Zionism, Capitalism, and Communism. His courses include The Global Right: From the French Revolution to the American Insurrection, Secularism: From the Enlightenment to the Present, Modern Jewish Intellectual History, The Holocaust in Culture and Politics. He has served as a term member on the Council on Foreign Relations and a consultant to the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland. Currently, he is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Center of Jewish History.
His latest project is entitled No Where Left to Go: Jews and the Global Right from 1977 to October 7.
About Philip Gorski
Philip S. Gorski is a comparative-historical sociologist with strong interests in theory and methods and in modern and early modern Europe. He is Frederick and Laura Goff Professor of Sociology at Yale University. His empirical work focuses on topics such as state-formation, nationalism, revolution, economic development and secularization with particular attention to the interaction of religion and politics. Other current interests include the philosophy and methodology of the social sciences and the nature and role of rationality in social life. He’s author with Samuel L. Perry of The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy, as well as American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present.
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.
Philip Gorski: The Deep Story runs something like this. America was founded as a Christian nation. The founders were Orthodox Christians. The founding documents were based on, quote, biblical principles or perhaps even divinely inspired. The United States has a special role to play in history as an acceptor. Or, or chosen nation in order to carry out that mission.
It's been blessed with unique power and prosperity, but the project, the mission, and also the prosperity and the power are all increasingly endangered by the presence of non-whites, non-native born people, non-Christians on American soil. So, you know, in a sense, it's still drawing on a certain Christian understanding of a covenantal logic, right.
The United States is founded on some sort of a covenant, but that's not a covenant that's based on law so much as one that's based on power.
Eliyahu Stern: There's so many different things that word Christian is doing next to nationalism, not just a lip service. After World War II. That term nationalism was so disgraced and was associated to such a degree with a certain kind of racial and biological set of ideas that broad consensus just was that that term was verboten.
It was just outside of proper political conversation. And to the point that when Trump calls himself a nationalist, I don't know if anyone remembers that rally.
Donald Trump: People of corrupt greed. Globalists. You know what a globalist is, right? You know what a globalist is. A globalist is a person that wants the globe to do well, frankly, not caring about our country so much.
And you know what? We can't have that.
Eliyahu Stern: He gets up there, it's 2018, and he's up there and he says, There's this word nationalist. I know it sounds really old.
Donald Trump: You know, they have a word. It sort of became old fashioned. It's called a nationalist.
Eliyahu Stern: And he's asking people he could see, he's testing it out, seeing if the crowd likes it, does it.
And he hears them liking it, and he moves, he says, you know what, that's what I am, I'm a nationalist.
Donald Trump: And I say, really, we're not supposed to use that word, you know what I am? I'm a nationalist, okay? I'm
Eliyahu Stern: They're really, you know, embracing it and reveling in the term.
But to many people, what you see, there's also, there's a hesitancy. And so what the word Christianity does is it's also, it purifies it. It's a way. of removing all the sins that are actually associated with it historically.
Philip Gorski: Christian nationalism is also a political strategy that's used by would be demagogues and authoritarian leaders.
I don't think anybody believes for a second that Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin, or for that matter, Viktor Orban are, serious Christians, by any reasonable definition of that term. You know, even if many of their followers and fans might well be, it's a way of mobilizing people. You know, it's a way of dressing up nativism and white supremacism in More acceptable garb, kind of a fig leaf.
It's also part of a kind of majoritarian political strategy. And that's how it's being used. It's a way of reestablishing hierarchy, reasserting boundaries that put certain groups of people on top. And I think it's being just used in a very cynical way by, by a lot of these global leaders who know exactly what they're doing.
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.
When it comes
to Christian nationalism, many people, especially sincere and earnest people of Orthodox Christian faith, are just stumped. What is God's interest in America? How do you support the ethics of Jesus based in love, alongside American militarism and capitalism? And when does patriotism become idolatry? But of course, there is a deeper story going on.
Far more complex and nuanced than an American Jesus mashup. And somewhere near the root of that deep story is is just a very different understanding about the utility of religion for politics, for political purposes. We're not used to talking about religion this way. We have to dig past the morality stuff, the theological and philosophical stuff, the bible stuff, the political stuff.
Personal relationship stuff, the sincere belief stuff, the Sunday morning church stuff, the genuinely spiritual stuff, until we arrive at the power of religion as a political tool.
Today, now four years past January 6th, 2021, and anticipating the next term of presidential office. Yale professors Eliyahu Stern and Philip Gorski join me for a conversation about the face of Christian nationalism today. Eliyahu Stern is professor of modern Jewish intellectual and cultural history in the departments of religious studies and history at Yale University, and his current project is entitled Nowhere Left to Go, Jews and the Global Right from 1977 to October 7.
Philip Gorski is Frederick and Laura Goff professor of sociology at Yale University and is author of The Flag and the Cross. White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy, with Samuel Perry, as well as American Covenant. A history of civil religion, from the Puritans to the present.
Together we discuss what religion really means in sociological and historical terms. The difference between religions of power and religions of law or morality. The American syncretism of Pagan Christianity. We talk about the connection between nationalism and secularism. And the desire to be a chosen people, the notion of supersessionism at the root of seeing Christian conquest of America as a new Jerusalem, a new favored people and shining city on a hill.
And how ordinary citizens can be chosen. Come to adopt the tenets of Christian nationalism today. Special thanks to our production assistant, Zoë Halaban for pitching this conversation. And thank you for listening today.
Ellie, Phil, thanks so much for joining me on For the Life of the World. Thank you. Great to be with you today. We're going to be talking about the sort of state of play for Christian nationalism in America and. I think with that combination of words, Christian nationalism in America, it's becoming more prevalent.
There's more awareness. Perhaps there's more self awareness for those that identify as Christian nationalists. There is maybe an increased sense of ownership and pride in that. For those who are afraid of Christian nationalism, there's going to be the corresponding increase of worry and concern about the direction that American democracy is headed.
And Ellie, as a religious historian, working in modern Jewish thought and focusing on, as I understand it, religious and secular tensions within Judaism, you've also been working on this new project, Nowhere Left to Go. Jews and the Global Right from 1977 to October 7th. And Phil, you've been writing for quite a long time about the sociology of religion in America and most recently in your book, The Flag and the Cross.
I'm really grateful to each of you for offering some insight, but as scholars of religion coming from different disciplines, I wonder if I might get each of you to take a step back and just start with some preliminary, some insight for the public on just the human practice of religion from your perspective.
Just to say a little bit about the significance of it and some of your priors.
Eliyahu Stern: The question is intrinsic to the conversation we're having right now, which is when we use the word Christian or when we use the word Jewish, use the word Hindu, who does that include? Who does that include? What ideas are?
There's a certain kind of essentialism, a certain kind of coherency that we're assuming when we use that word that can encompass and that defines what that is, when in fact we know that the way Hinduism looks, or the way Judaism looks, or the way Islam looks, or the way Christianity looks, and the way in which it plays out politically varies all the time.
The way one person will invoke Christianity will be something very different than, say, the way a church or the way, um, another person or another religious figure is going to invoke that term. Certainly, we know there's so many different denominations of Christianity and likewise of Judaism and likewise Islam.
So what we're engaged in, even by trying to tackle this question, Christian nationals. And the first thing is a certain kind of both humility and also a certain kind of leap that we're taking by saying there is something coherent here. There is something to be said for looking at this in the most generalizable turn of Christianity, taking into all the various vicissitudes of history into account that we still could say about the world.
this generalizable idea and set of values called Christianity.
Philip Gorski: Yeah. So for the project I'm working on currently is, I sometimes joke the book could be titled The History of the Sacred from Babylon to Beyonce. I'm not sure. I'm not sure the university press is going to let me get away with that title, but they're thinking very much in the long range.
And I find myself thinking more in terms of the category of the sacred than of religion and seeing religion as. You know, one species of the genus sacred that's in competition with, at least in the modern world, with all of the many different forms of sacralities. I don't really think that we're living in a secular age, at least not in the way that term is usually understood in lay people's terms.
It's a world that's, you know, bereft of, of, And I have another comment that I think follows pretty directly on Ellie's nice sketch of the complexities around using these descriptor terms like Christianity or religion in a relationship of Christianity to nationalism. To my view, which isn't necessarily the most orthodox view, but one I'm happy to defend is that Western nationalism itself is the offspring of a Christian supersessionist appropriation of Judaism.
And I think where you can see this most obviously is in the way in which the United States, but for that matter, just about every Western nation at one point or another proclaimed itself a new Jerusalem, a new Israel, its people, a new chosen people. You know, who were taking the place of the Jews, but I think you can see it is an even deeper level in the way in which our survey conceptualization of the nation draws on the Exodus narrative.
I mean, what is a nation? It's a people, it's a polity, it's land with those things aligned as much as possible. And that's where we are. Straight out of the Exodus narrative, right? So we're often surprised to see Christian nationalism or religious nationalism more broadly, because we want to think about Christianity as a universalistic religion, which knows no race or nation, but there is, and always has been this other dimension of Christianity, this other understanding of Christianity.
That's Just reviving itself once again, and in the current political context, and not just in the United States, as Elie is showing in his work, you know, this is a global phenomenon now.
Evan Rosa: Sticking with this point, but maybe developing it a little bit, the kind of deep story is a term that you use, Phil, in the flag and the cross, and the narrative that's there, and perhaps the commitment to a certain kind of mythology that Christian nationalism represents.
Thank you. I wonder if we could park on that, because I want to explore this deep story of supercessionism. and maybe pull some of the strings there so that the audience might understand a little bit more about what that is, what it would mean, and perhaps some historical points.
Philip Gorski: The deep story runs something like this.
America was founded as a Christian nation. The founders were Orthodox Christians. The founding documents were based on quote biblical principles or perhaps even divinely inspired. The United States has a special role to play. In history as an exceptional or chosen nation, in order to carry out that mission, it's been blessed with unique power and prosperity.
But the project, the mission, and also the prosperity and the power are all increasingly endangered by the presence of non whites, non native born people, non Christians on American soil. So, you know, in a sense, it's still drawing on a certain Christian understanding of a covenantal logic, right? That the United States is founded on some sort of a covenant, but that's not a covenant that's based on law so much as one that's based on power.
And I think this is an important point because there are different understandings of what covenant would mean, certainly within Christian theology and no doubt also Jewish theology as well.
Eliyahu Stern: I just would also broaden out one of the points that Phil was saying, which is the tendency to see oneself as chosen, picking up on that, um, biblical idea, um, you know, that runs across the world.
I remember at one point somebody asked, Barack Obama, do you think that America is a chosen nation? And he said yes, the same way the French think that about themselves, or the way in which other countries think that about themselves. So the way in which this narrative has been picked up by the United States to then, Define a set of insiders and outsiders as a form of creating social, generating social bonds and feelings of patriotism and allegiance, and at the same time, securing, protecting, and marginalizing other groups.
It has also been one that's been picked up and used by other states as well in, of course, different ways. Sometimes it's been more reliant upon biblical ideals, but oftentimes Greek texts and Greek mythologies that will lead to maybe more pagan understandings of nationalism. So American context is interesting or unique, or in some ways highlights a certain kind of biblical nationalist position, but by no means Is it the only one that does it?
It just accentuates that in ways that I think are strongly felt and seen today.
Evan Rosa: Let's stay on chosenness for a moment because I find this really fascinating and I think there's an important point. This kind of human drive for their tribe to be special and to be particularized and to be better than. My team's better than yours. We're the chosen ones. We're going to go all the way.
Can we comment a little bit about this? The depth here is. Probably very deeply psychological, deeply emotional, epigenetic, perhaps. Like what is this human drive toward chosenness?
Eliyahu Stern: I'll just say one, one quick thing about, about how that term has been used and experienced by Jews, precisely at the moment that.
So many different, whether it's in England or the United States or the Netherlands, that are claiming at the beginning of the 18th century and slightly even earlier, that are claiming to be chosen peoples and are returning and using the Old Testament as a source. Jews are sitting around the world and are identified, of course, with that term.
And they're trying to figure out. How to unchosen themselves, because the ways in which that both historically seemed odd at that time, Jews were dispersed all over the world. They were weak political positions in all these countries that were then picking up these terms or marginalized positions and also the chauvinism.
that it carried was seen as a stain. And so you have all this work being done precisely at the time that states are reclaiming the Old Testament and claiming the mantle of the idea of chosenness for their own political projects. Ironically, Jews at that moment, Being in a weak political position and trying to be able to get in and be accepted within these nation states are neutralizing that idea and saying, yes, we might be different, but we are not necessarily better.
So, It's, I think, very interesting to see. It all depends where you're standing to want to make or to highlight that term.
Evan Rosa: And it does seem like the role of the Bible is very important, the, the, an interpretation of the Old Testament. And so this is where I, and maybe go back to Phil for a moment. The particular interpretation of the Old Testament, and I think this is where the supersessionism might, we could pull on that a little bit.
Um, understanding. Exactly what that could mean and how it relates to this new chosenness or the idea that our nation. might be fulfilling some Old Testament prophecy. It might be the fulfillment of a promise.
Philip Gorski: Yeah. I mean, within Christian theology, I see two somewhat different ways in which, uh, theologians have pulled on the old.
Testament story, and one of them we refer to as the promised land story. And this is the idea that the United States or whatever nation you have is a promised land. And in the case of the United States, that This land happens to be occupied by indigenous people who were then cast as Kenanites or Amalekites who have to be driven out or destroyed in order that this new chosen people of America can claim its birthright.
That's one way of reading the story. And another way of reading the story has less to do with conquest and more to do with being exemplary. That to be chosen means to be a nation of priests, or it means to build an exemplary community, to be the city on a hill, rather than trying to storm and conquer the top of the hill, right?
So those are, you find both of those within American Christianity, really from very early on, I mean, in the writings of the Puritan theologians, the Mathers, for example, you find both of those readings somewhat in tension with one another. And, you know, one of the things that really activates the promised land version, the conquest version, is the Puritan's wars with the indigenous peoples.
And, you know, they need to find some justification for occupying their land, for driving them out, for killing them in many cases,
Evan Rosa: Perhaps we could expand a little because I think the question of the sources of this deep story, which we're currently exploring, point to an epistemological question around how we gather or absorb information.
And I would expand here, not just religious information, but political information and the nexus between those, because that's where things get And I think it's a great opportunity for us to explore the ways that this story is passed on, the ways that people begin to adopt it. We'll just take a first
Philip Gorski: stab at it.
I think it is something that is really increasingly baked into the kind of. conservative Christian subculture or subcultures within the United States. There's something that you find in Christian homeschooling textbooks. It's a narrative that was certainly propagated by Christian nationalist entrepreneurs.
David Barton, it's something that's preached by popular online pastors like Robert Jeffries or Greg Locke. Increasingly, it's even being taken up by Theobrow reformed intellectuals like Stephen Wolfride, who made this, wrote this case for Christian nationalism book. So it's a story that I think, you know, is deep in the sense that it's just the water that many people swim in and just seems and feels true.
That's one of the, that's one of the characteristics of a deep stories is just feels true. And it's not something that you're necessarily consciously aware of all the time. It's just the way that, that you view the world.
Eliyahu Stern: And I also want to say that the term Christian nationalism, the term Christian, it does, on one hand, the two things, as Phil said, are somewhat in tension with each other, right?
Christianity, we'd like to think, has this universal appeal. On the other hand, nationalism is something always that is referencing a specific group, a certain territory, a certain people. And what the two do together, I think, very interestingly, is they also allow for other kinds of alliances. In other words, it's not just Americans that are invoking that term.
or, or working within that model. What you have is a whole group of other states that are also making similar arguments and they range from Hungary, out to Russia, down to South America, Brazil, where you have political parties that are invoking that terminology. To be able to create a certain understanding of their own nations, but at the same time, what's also happening is it's amplified.
So you asked about how they're getting this information fed to them. So they're not just hearing. about this on a local level. They're now in a larger social network online, virtually, where they're hearing that reinforced from all kinds of other places around the world. There are people that are letting them know that they are not alone in feeling that way.
and that give them a certain sense of support and a kind of echo chamber that in many ways both reaffirms what they're believing but also when you take a kind of step back you're like wait one second how is it that all these places think that they're the that they're the chosen people
Evan Rosa: it's an arms race
Eliyahu Stern: right well ultimately that that that's That's the problem there.
In other words, whatever kind of allyships there are, we're seeing that today. We're seeing the ways in which Christian nationalists in America are invoking all kinds of terminologies and methods and ideas that come from other places around the world. But at the same time, like you said, at the end of the day, it becomes an arms race.
Evan Rosa: Yeah, or a game of thrones.
Eliyahu Stern: I think that's one of the real challenges to it that I've yet to see a really good answer for.
Evan Rosa: What do you think would help pave a path toward answers, or perhaps not solutions, but just better questions? What kinds of questions should we be asking so that we can explore and lay bare some of these phenomena?
Philip Gorski: Yeah, I think this is the kind of work that Ellie and some others have been doing. I think it's scholars and journalists are a little bit late to the game and kind of following the money and tracing the networks and seeing the connections. I'm really looking forward to Ellie's book for that reason alone.
Eliyahu Stern: Yeah, I would say what we need to better understand, which I think oftentimes are missing in these conversations, is that the question of nationalism at this point. is also internationalized. And so we seem to, so wait one second, right? How is it, right? We're always asking because we see this word Christian and we see this word nationalism.
How could it be that there'd be groups of Americans that would feel a relationship to Vladimir Putin? I would see him as a model for what they're doing. Can't you see that there's certain threats that would pose? Isn't Russia historically on the big geopolitical chessboard always been seen as a foe?
But if you begin to look at the way that Putin is also invoked. A certain kind of Christian nationalism, mind you, based on Russian orthodoxy, you begin to see how and why they could still see somebody like that as being aligned with them, even if, for a whole set of socioeconomic security reasons, Russia poses grave threats to the United States.
You could still see why those people would be able to overcome that by a certain kind of Not just rhetoric, but certain kinds of postures, of gestures, of political instincts that Putin expresses that resonate with certain people on the right in the United States.
Philip Gorski: I would just say one additional thing, which is, I guess, probably obvious, but I think it does bear Emphasizing Christian nationalism is also a political strategy that's used by would be demagogues and authoritarian leaders.
I don't think anybody, certainly none of us, believes for a second that Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin, or for that matter, Viktor Orban, are serious Christians by any reasonable definition of that term. You know, even if many of their followers and fans might well be. It's a way of mobilizing people, it's a way of dressing up nativism and white supremacism in more acceptable garb, kind of a fig leaf, right?
And also part of a kind of divide and rule majoritarian political strategy. And that's, that's how it's being used. It's a way of reestablishing hierarchy, reasserting boundaries, put certain groups of people on top, and I think it's being just used in a very cynical way by, by a lot of these global leaders who know exactly what they're doing.
Eliyahu Stern: I don't want to push back, but maybe nuance some of what, uh, Phil said in terms of getting back to your question, Evan, about, well, how are we supposed to understand this better? I think that we also have to genuinely see that, um, There are a lot of people around the world that over the last 40 years have been real losers of free market economics.
Some of the biggest losers have been some of the biggest proponents of it, ironically. As Phil's work shows, and at least up until 2022, that much of those who embraced Christian nationalism, who were from lower income places on the map, were also strong proponents. Because of the idea of liberty of free market capitalism, but in many ways, the free market capitalism was eroding a lot of the very bonds, the social bonds and the relationships and the institutions that they saw as being essential to their flourishing and well being.
And so the move towards Uh, embracing a certain kind of nationalist rhetoric has to also be seen as somewhat of a response to that. We forget one of the great, I've always felt, one of the great ironies about the right in America over the last 40 years was it was embracing an economic agenda. That was at every step of the way eroding at the most central feature of right wing politics, which has always been a certain strong idea of a nation and strong borders of blood and soil.
What eats away at any kind of essentialized understanding of blood and soil is the porousness that free market capitalism brings to the national body. And what's happened right now is there's been a real recognition of that and a great fear of those economic processes and those economic institutions that have been reflecting and have been promoting a certain kind of free market.
economics. And that's where those nationalists, aside from whatever's going on the border and the ways in which it's ginned up, as Phil notes, the way in which they gin up that fear of immigrants. There are other questions about community, about trust, and a whole set of institutions that have been eroded over the last 40 years in American life that they're responding to as well, I think, that we have to take seriously.
Evan Rosa: What do you think is The deeply felt need of someone who comes to identify as a Christian nationalist, and you can use international or American examples, but I'm thinking about like the groups that are emerging as you're pointing out right now, Ellie, maybe the rise in populism or the economically disadvantaged are becoming proponents of a system that may or may not really help them in the end, but I would love to know.
Wouldn't we all? Like, what are those deeply felt needs that help them to so strongly identify that, oh, yes, I'm drawn into this? This is, the answer. This is how I and my tribe can flourish.
Philip Gorski: I think it, there, there are these very deep seated human needs for belonging and meaning and purpose and significance, and those are really threatened by social instability, by social inequality, by economic decline.
Ellie is right to really emphasize the way in which market fundamentalism or neoliberalism or the Washington consensus or whatever we want to call it, the dominant trend towards. economic globalization over the last 40, 50 years, the way in which that has really truly disrupted local communities, people's life courses, people's sense of significance of their own lives and attaching yourself to the nation and to the leader of the nation is a way of recovering this sense of significance of belonging to something important and a fortiori if that leader is not just a defender of the nation, but also poses a defender as a defender
Evan Rosa: of the faith and the culture, which often just seems like lip service.
I guess I can only comment for myself at the moment, but perhaps I represent others that it's just so easy to give lip service to. The support say for, for evangelical Christianity in the case of Trump or for Christian civilization for Putin and trying to align with Russian orthodoxy. I think this does come back to how that deeply felt sense of need to belong and to feel secure can often override our sensibilities around more taking track record into the picture or thinking more broadly about and becoming self critical about on offer here.
Eliyahu Stern: As you said, Evan, I think it's important also just to take a step back for me to understand what the word Christian, there's so many different things that word Christian is doing next to nationalism. And I think one of the things it's, it's doing here, it's not just the lip service, the word we have to understand after World War II, that term nationalism.
was so disgraced and was associated to such a degree with a certain kind of racial and biological It's a set of ideas that broad consensus of Western states and people living in just was that term was verboten. It was just outside of political, a proper political conversation. And to the point that when Trump calls himself a nationalist, I don't know if anyone remembers that rally, he gets up there, I think it's 2017, 2018.
18. And he's up there and he says, there's this word nationalist. I know it sounds really old. And he's asking people, you could see he's testing it out, seeing if the crowd likes it, doesn't. And he hears them liking it and he moves in and says, you know what? That's what I am. I'm a nationalist. And he's up there really gracing it, reveling in the term.
But to many people, what you see there's also, there's a hesitancy. And so what the word Christianity does is it's also purifies it. It's a way of removing all the sins that are actually associated with it historically. And so what it does is it elides for many who still hold certain biological or racialist views of that nation.
It elides it. In something called Christianity, which has a certain universal character to it. And what it's doing there is it's offsetting the kind of charged historical baggage that comes with that term. And so what Phil does is he's sitting there asking a harder question. Wait one second. How much also.
of that baggage comes from Christianity itself. And what does it mean to put those two terms now together? But I think getting into their mind or how that term is playing out and why it has certain compelling characters to seeing it as a way of cleansing the historical record on nationalism itself after World War II.
Evan Rosa: I would, I want to hear what you have to say about this, Phil, but I'll just add to this mix. And I just, I did a quick search while listening to you, um, he trusts. Nationalist with globalist. And he vilifies the idea of a globalism that says, we need to focus on our own turf. We need to focus on our own tribe.
And he's been good at this. He just, whatever epithets or insults someone might hurl at him in adopting them. and simply owning it, he seems to have grown in strength.
Philip Gorski: Yeah, no, I think that's right. You know, Steve Bannon often vilifies the globalists and globalism and contrasts it with nationalism and the nationalist.
So I think that's right. And we do in a way, I hate to do it. I hate to do this, give Trump a little bit of credit, right, in the sense that, for example, he was one of the first people on the right to say what was plain to everybody on the left from, you know, the Al Assad, which was that the Iraq, second Iraq war was a gigantic mistake, um, and that it was driven by American imperial ambition, and that, you know, In that sense, America is maybe not so exceptional after all.
He was certainly right about that, and he was also right about the, as Elie has emphasized about the ways in which, you know, neoliberalism and globalization had been just a disaster for many Americans. Even the most mainstream economists now say as much, but this was, these were not critiques that anybody on the right was going to listen to if they were coming from the left.
They would only listen to them if they came from somebody on the right. And Trump became the tribute for these folks. I think too, just to amplify a point that Ellie was making even a little bit more, I think one of the things that's, um, important to understand about Christian nationalism and religious nationalisms around the world is that many of their strongest proponents are not, you know, religious in the conventional sense.
They're not practicing or believing folks necessarily. And one way of pulling those folks in is to talk about Christianity as a culture or a tradition or a civilization, right? In a way that, well, it's a saying that was that's in our past, but nonetheless shapes us in the present. And although I am secular or not particularly religious, nonetheless, I can own that.
I think that's, that's really crucial.
Eliyahu Stern: I think a really important distinction that you're making, if I could just draw it out, what you're saying here is that the way we tend to think about religion in America, when we tend to think about it, we really think oftentimes through the lens of a certain kind of Judeo Christian moral.
understanding of religion, and what you're emphasizing is that when we're talking about Christian nationalism, we have to first and foremost recognize that we're talking about a different understanding of Christianity than what Americans are accustomed to seeing as the dominant, uh, understanding of what that term signifies.
I just think it's a really important point you're making. If you could just, you know, flesh it out a little bit more, I think, I think it's really important.
Philip Gorski: Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. So, so I would, I would draw a kind of a broad distinction between religions of power and religions of morality and We tend to think about Christianity, or at least in 20th century United States, as first and foremost a religion of morality.
Um, the Judeo Christian tradition is first and foremost a moral, moral tradition. But there are forms of Christianity and other religions that are much more about power. And I think that in that sort of tricky balance, which you see is a shift in the direction of an understanding of religion as, as, as a form of power.
You can see that across all four of these constituent traditions of the Christian nationalist. movement at the moment, right? So for Catholic integralists, it's a vision of a renewed Christendom in which you use the power of the state to promote human flourishing and perhaps also individual salvation.
Amongst the Pentecostals, the power is And the power of prophecy, the supernatural power of healing, the use of divine power in spiritual, spiritual warfare, you know, monks, the Christian Reconstructionists, there's a power that's embodied in, um, you know, a set of, that's kind of embodied in this divine blueprint, which they believe, for the perfect society, which they believe is perfect.
to be found in Old Testament or Jewish Scripture. You know, and I think, you know, finally for evangelicals, it's the idea that you need a powerful protector, you know, to protect you against the hostile forces of secularism and humanism and atheism, and whether that protector is himself and it is a him.
Religious is really Sort of, or, you know, or Christian is really irrelevant, right? So here are the comparisons early on of Trump to Cyrus. I think this also helps you to understand the connection with pagan movement because pagan movements and, you know, all sort of, in my view, kind of pre axial age religious traditions were first and foremost about mobilizing various kinds of power.
And so, you know, these religions of power are just, again, you know, not so far afield from kind of pre Christian, pagan religion that some Folks on the right and the far right are, you know, are, are reclaiming for themselves. I think there are some Christians who recognize this. I mean, I remember reading an article in the Atlantic by Peter Wenner where he described Trump and MAGA as a neo Nietzschean movement.
And so it's sort of bizarre revenge of, of, of Nietzsche, right? Where, you know, Nietzsche's vision has in a way captured Christianity itself.
Eliyahu Stern: I think it just, you know, in many ways that brings us back full circle to the first question you asked, which is what is, what is religion here? And I think that to be able to really understand Christian nationalism today is the first really have to critically analyze what that category of religion is and what it can be and not fall into the trap of seeing it through a certain kind of Protestant Judeo Christian lens.
And so, you know, being able to critically analyze that term is what allows you to open up And see the relationships of Christianity to other kinds of groups and make other kinds of connections around the globe and see the kinds of political alliances that are, that are underway today on the right more generally.
Evan Rosa: Thank you both. And I think this distinction is powerful and it's really helpful and it, not enough people use the distinction.
Philip Gorski: You know one more thing I think that we really, you maybe now to talk a little bit about what's been going on with the Christian nationalist movement more recently. I do think there have been a number of very important There are a couple of key shifts within the movement, and one is that it is not just centered in evangelicalism anymore.
In fact, I don't even think that evangelicals are calling the shots to any significant degree anymore within the movement. I would actually point to three other theological currents and religious communities that I think are more important. The first is, uh, conservative Catholics, particularly post, so called post liberal and neo integralist Catholics.
And so I'm, you know, calling out folks like Patrick Deneen and Adrian Vermeule here, but more broadly as a group of folks who've assembled around the journal First Things. They're brain trusts, right? The second that I would point to is Dominion theologians or theonomists or Christian reconstructionists.
Those ideas 30 years ago were just incredibly fringe, were openly criticized by mainstream evangelicals, were called out in Christianity today, but have become enormously influential. I would wager that far more people now listen to Doug Wilson's podcast than listen to any We're a Christianity Today podcast.
And the last group is non denominational Pentecostal. We know through the work of Matthew D. Taylor that the real radical edge within that movement is the so called New Apostolic Reformation. And the reason I think it's important to see this shift in the balance of power within the movement and the shift in the kind of ideological center within the movement is it is becoming really anti democratic.
So, for example, you hear Um, appreciative talk about Christendom. You hear descriptions of America as Anglo Protestant or Anglo Protestant culture. You hear talk about spiritual warfare, and this is not Ralph Reed circa 1990 anymore. This isn't just about getting people to the polls. This is about occupying institutions, seizing power, and using the state to impose a particular vision and a particular hierarchy.
And that is really, that is a big change I think is accelerated over the last four or five years. particularly during the period where Trump was out of power. I mean, that is what's got me just extremely worried. And when 2021, January 6th, there were lots of Christian nationalists outside of the Capitol who were trying to get in, Those folks are going to be inside the Capitol and inside the White House.
You've got Mike Johnson, you've got Pete Hegseth, you've got Russell Vaught. The list goes on, JD Vance, all of whom are aficionados of one or the other of the central theological currents within contemporary American Christian nationalism. So I do think we're at a very different place politically than we were even four or five years ago.
Eliyahu Stern: I would add to that one other. One other feature of it, which is, I think, from a kind of move away from, let's say, a Judeo Christian morality focused political platform, and towards the kinds of groups that Phil is flagging that have become ascendant, you also see the ability for greater overlaps and alliances with a rising pagan.
movement within the right, even in the United States, it looks a lot more like Europe. And so the issues of the issues that we tend to identify with American Judeo Christianity of its kind of Puritanism, it's, it's morality, it's pieties. Those things are less and less the defining features. Everyone says, how can Christians embrace Trump?
How could religious people, but you're working with a certain model of religion that is. But that is not necessarily the public one that these groups are embracing. And what that does is it actually allows for alliances with all kinds of other groups. We talked about Jan 6th. It wasn't just Christian nationalists who were standing in front of the Capitol.
There were all kinds of very pagan, even Phil mentions in his book, he quotes, it's at length from the shaman, um, got up and gave a speech in the chamber. And. It's very interesting to think he's sitting there talking about Christianity, but he's up there as a shaman. Yeah, thinking about Christianity. So the merging between certain pagan trends and certain strands of Christianity, I think are also very noteworthy here.
Evan Rosa: You're talking about the guy with the horns, right? Yeah,
Eliyahu Stern: the guy with the horns.
Evan Rosa: Yeah, it's utterly fascinating. He never had a
Eliyahu Stern: picture of a cross on him. He's got the horns on him.
Evan Rosa: It really is a conflagration of so much there, right? Like his face is painted in the American colors. He's got his like headdress on and And, but he's, he's, he's praying, he's praying, praying to Jesus.
Eliyahu Stern: I mean, Christianity also has those elements and there's a pagan side to Christianity as well. So this is a different understanding of religion and Christianity that what I think many people think about or instinctively think about in the United States when they think about Christianity.
Philip Gorski: This is a very important point that overlaps with this project I'm working on right now, in fact.
I think Ellie is exactly right to stress that there have always been more transcendental and more imminent versions of Christianity. And one end of the spectrum, the radically transcendent end of the spectrum, you might have a kind of orthodox Calvinism, right? God is very far away. Jesus is fading somewhat into the background.
No truck with a kind of ritual or ceremony as anything other than merely symbolic. And then on the other hand, you have versions of Christianity, which Puritans and others would deride as magical or superstitious, which see various kinds of spirits and powers at work all the time in the world, who can be manipulated in various ways.
And it's really that latter form of Christianity that we see rising in prominence. This is especially clear in the case of Pentecostalism, sort of spiritual warfare. And as Ellie rightly said, the line between that and certain kinds of paganism is pretty clear. thin, pretty thin indeed. And, you know, then you add to that another factor, which is the shift away from denominational to non denominational Christianity, indeed to Christianity, which is not even brick and mortar Christianity of any kind.
It's events based rally, based forms of Christianity, where there is no clerical authority, where there is no theological tradition, which creates some kind of constraints or sets some kinds of limits to this more human and magical understandings of the world, right? And which, whatever gets people excited or whatever seems to work or whatever energizes the crowd is, is on offer and becomes increasingly poignant.
is another dynamic that I think is making this, uh, seemingly contradictory sort of neo pagan Christian alliance more and more plausible. It's all this kind of DIY religion and spirituality. And that in fact is one of the things that it turned out a lot of the folks who stormed the Capitol had in common.
Many of them claimed to be Christian, but very few of them had any kind of real solid affiliation with or so, I mean, you know, the kind of more radical. edge of the movement, I think is often these sort of DIY folks who float in this kind of sea of prophecy and conspiracy and wellness and bro science
Evan Rosa: in a moment of transition in the country. And as we look at one administration going away and making this shift, I'm wondering if each of you might comment on what you'll be looking for, what questions you'll be asking, what concerns. you might recommend. And maybe also, why don't we end on what might give you hope right now?
Eliyahu Stern: No, I think there's so much talk, especially I think Being an academic and being in a university, so much talk on what's the left's response, what should the left do in light of the fact that Trump, Trump has really set the stage and has captured the main territory of what of what politics is. He got there first to be able to identify with a working class.
Should, should we be concerned about what's going to happen to minority groups and, and to black and brown communities? Should Democratic Party be more invested in the working class? I actually think that we right now don't even know what the response to Trump is because we have really no idea what he is going to do.
And one thing I could say for sure, whatever the plan is, For a democratic party or progressives is not yet clear. It's going to be defined by what Trump fails at and what he succeeds at to the degree that he's able to address the needs of that working class, the needs of those who are fearful. of Immigration.
Those who feel that their security and being has been imperiled by, by immigrants and by all these trade agreements. The degree that his plan will respond to those, that's where we're going to see if there's going to be a response. It's going to come by the failures or successes. of his own policies. And in many ways, he's in a very lucky position.
He can right now chart out the course he wants. And the question is, what course is he going to adopt? Everything that we know about him seems to signify that he's going to go further and further towards his base and further feel, further use a politics of grievance and victimization, but which increasingly looked bizarre, because he's in a great position of power at this point.
The few things that I'm, I guess I would say I am hopeful about. There's one thing I'm hopeful. It's that many on the right around the world, and here I'm thinking about also the Middle East, really see Trump as, as the backstop. So take Israel, for example. I think Israel has always been able to play with American presidents or with various liberal or democratic political leaders because they've said, look, at the end of the day, the larger evangelical community, the Christian right, In the United States stands behind us and, and we can afford to have a pushback greater on, on, on America's desire for a ceasefire, for peace in the region, so on and so forth.
But Trump really does have the ability. He has the ability. to theoretically make groups make hard compromises and strike a deal. And whether or not he uses that, I don't know. There's nothing that indicates he's going to do that in certain places, but I'm hopeful that he uses that ability and that power that he has on a global stage to be able to create greater forms of peace in hostile regions.
And so I'm, I wouldn't say I'm whole, I'd say, yeah, I'm not, I don't think it's necessarily going to happen, but I am hopeful that Perhaps it
Evan Rosa: could. So we'll give you the last word today.
Philip Gorski: I guess a cynical side of me says my greatest hope lies in Trump's failures. And I'm sure there will be failures because there's so much corruption and incompetence in this country.
group of people he's assembled around him. I'm sure they're going to make massive mistakes, but I fear that it will take a lot of his followers a very long time to connect the dots. The example I always have in mind here is the Iraq war, which I took folks on the right a solid 15, 20 years to really figure out was a mistake.
So I worry a little bit that given Trump's ability to dominate the information environment, it'll take a very long time for the chickens to come home to roost. On a more, more positive note, I do think it's good that there has been a real shift in focus of folks on the left towards concerns around economic inequality, a shift of efforts, away from the national government towards state and local government.
And I think that the path back to power really is going to lie through rebuilding the kind of local and state level parties and organizations on the left and embracing some kind of a, some kind of a political universalism again.
Evan Rosa: I'll speak for myself in saying that what gives me hope is conversations like this.
The fact that each of you are bringing the sorts of. Insights that you are, which I find incredibly enlightening. I hope that more people would be exposed to just this level of reflection. and research about what this is. I think that would be one way to enact some of these hopes for peace and I think broad flourishing.
So thank you both for joining me today.
Eliyahu Stern: Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.
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 Eliyahu Stern and Philip Gorski. Production assistance by Zoë Halaban, Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, and Emily Brookfield. For more information, visit us online at faith.yale.edu or lifeworthliving.yale.edu.
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