What is White Christian Nationalism and How Is It Affecting Public Education Today?

Our politics and our national ethos seem to have gone awry, and a lot of people blame it on something called Christian nationalism or white Christian nationalism. And yet, the book bans, the efforts to prohibit honest teaching about slavery, and the attempts to quash equity and inclusion seem to have nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus, embodied, for example, in the Great Commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22: 39) If, like me, you have been confused by the seeming contradictions, I recommend a book that begins: “This book is a primer on white Christian nationalism, what it is, when it emerged, how it works, and where it’s headed. White Christian nationalism is one of the oldest and most powerful currents in American politics.” (The Flag and The Cross, p. 1)

The book is The Flag and The Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy, by two professors of the sociology of religion, Philip S. Gorski at Yale University and Samuel L. Perry at the University of Oklahoma. The book is short, readable, and extremely relevant to the political maelstrom in today’s United States.

The authors trace the existence of white Christian nationalism back to the introduction of slavery to Virginia; the subjugation of American Indians beginning in Massachusetts and then westward through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the Civil War and subsequent collapse of Reconstruction followed by Jim Crow; the Mexican American War; and the Spanish American War with the establishment of an American empire including the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico.

So… what is white Christian nationalism? “White Christian nationalism is a ‘deep story’ about America’s past and a vision of its future. It includes cherished assumptions about what America was and is, but also what it it should be…  America was founded as a Christian nation by (white) men who were ‘traditional’ Christians, who based the nation’s founding documents on ‘Christian principles.’ The United States is blessed by God, which is why it has been so successful; and the nation has a special role to play in God’s plan for humanity. But these blessings are threatened by cultural degradation from ‘un-American’ influences both inside and outside our borders.” (The Flag and The Cross, pp. 3-4)

Gorski and Perry continue: “Like any story, this one has its heroes: white conservative Christians, usually native-born men. It also has its villains: racial, religious, and cultural outsiders. The plot revolves around conflicts between the noble and worthy ‘us,’ the rightful heirs of wealth and power, and the undeserving ‘them’ who conspire to take what is ours. Sometimes the conflicts culminate in violence—violence that restores white Christians to what they believe is their rightful place atop America’s racial and religious hierarchy… But this story is a myth… At this point, the skeptical reader might wonder what’s ‘Christian’ about this deep story.  It is ‘Christian’ because the vast majority of those who believe this story identify as such.” (The Flag and The Cross, pp. 4-5)

Why has white Christian nationalism exploded in recent years? “The source of the growing pressure is a set of slow-moving changes in American society.  The United States has slowly become less white, less Christian, and less powerful; more diverse, secular, and cosmopolitan. And this collided with a certain conception of America as a white Christian nation favored by God and ruled by white Christian men ready to defend freedom and order with violence.” (The Flag and The Cross, p. 103) Gorski and Perry describe the January 6th insurrection as a symbol of the conflict.

After defining “white Christian nationalism,” Gorski and Perry explain what it is not: “(W)hite Christian nationalism is not ‘Christian patriotism’; white Christian nationalism…. is rooted in white supremacist assumptions and empowered by anger and fear. This is nationalism, not patriotism… Second, white Christian nationalism is not synonymous with white evangelicalism per se, even if there is considerable overlap… Third and finally, white Christian nationalism is not just a problem among white American Christians. There are secular versions of white Christian nationalism that claim to defend ‘Western Culture’ or ‘Judeo-Christian civilization.’ And there are secular white Americans who know how to leverage white Christian nationalist language. For such Americans, the ‘Christian’ label simply signals shared tribal identity or veils political values that would otherwise be socially unacceptable. That is certainly how Trump himself used the label—as a rallying cry and a fig leaf—and one reason why so many white Christians have been attracted to him: not because he himself is an exemplar of Christian piety, but because he waved the Christian flag and announced his willingness to ‘fight’ for it.” (The Flag and The Cross, pp. 8-10)

The book is not principally about the institution of public education, but it says a lot about today’s assault on inclusive public schools. The authors name some of what’s been happening in recent years and in addition create a theoretical scaffolding to help us understand attacks on public education as part of a scheme to use public schools to protect the dominant culture.  Here are four threats to public education that reflect white Christian nationalism:

• opposition to teaching about racism in American history, and the passage of state laws to ban multicultural education, and ‘diversity, equity and inclusion;’ (The Flag and The Cross, p. 14);
•  efforts to permit religious education at public expense—promotimg the beliefs of specific faith traditions and undermining the protection of religious liberty (The Flag and The Cross, p. 16);
• efforts to block school integration after Brown v. Board of Education (The Flag and The Cross, p. 69); and
• the recent proposal by the Heritage Foundation of a strategy to overturn Plyler v. Doe to exclude from public schools undocumented students who cannot afford to pay tuition.

All  of these attacks exemplify pushback against inclusion and welcome for ‘the other’: “The first and most fundamental way in which white Christian nationalism threatens American liberal democracy is that it defines ‘the people’ in a way that excludes many Americans. White Christian nationalism is a form of what is often called ‘ethno-nationalism.’ Liberal democracy rests on what is usually called ‘civic nationalism’ It defines the nation in terms of values, laws, and institutions.'” (The Flag and The Cross, p. 114)

Throughout the book the authors explore and re-explore the meaning of the deep story of white Christian nationalism: “White Christian nationalism is our term for the ethno-traditionalism among many white Americans that conflates racial, religious, and national identity (the deep story) and pines for cultural and political power that demographic and cultural shifts have increasingly threatened…. (T)he term Christian in white Christian nationalism is often far more akin to a dog whistle that calls out to an aggrieved tribe than a description of the content of one’s faith.” (The Flag and The Cross, p. 44)