I appreciate you drawing from Twitter/X and other social media platforms. One of the ways that Christian Nationalists have been able to evade serious notice from academics (whether intentionally or not, I don't know), is by building a Very Online community. Most academics tend to feel like social media content is beneath their notice - I don't think we live in that world anymore.
More than 8 years ago I could tell that romantic nationalism was making a come-back in conservative circles. I remember begging some very online pastors to stop rage posting about the latest culture war outrage long enough to carefully consider what was going on with political theology.
I think more pastors are trying to get up to speed now, but most of what I still hear in response to the subject of Christian Nationalism is a quick deflection of the term as something used to describe anything remotely Christian within politics. I’m hopeful this is beginning to give way to more thoughtful engagement in the face of more obvious moves to leverage state power in the name of nominal Christianity. This kind of careful analysis is so helpful!
This is very interesting indeed! I am a 70-year-old who has been a Christian since my baptism at age 13. I am also a conservative politically and socially. I am a member of my county's Republican headquarters, and so I "know some folks". But I personally have never met an actual Christian nationalist? Where do you find them? Do they make their identity known to all?
I mean, it’s not an organization, like a political party. It’s a loosely connected ideology. That said, you mostly find them connected online, though as I wrote about a couple months ago, they do occasionally hold conferences.
And yes, many of them are increasingly identifying with the CN label.
I had NO idea that they had conferences! I found a YouTube video of one, and my ears were assaulted with the piercing sound of a woman's voice screeching - YIKES! I'm slightly hungover this morning, so immediately the sound was turned off. The subtitle says "an ideology and movement advocating a fusion of Christian symbols with American civic life", which on the surface sounds pretty okay. But I'm going to look into this further. Thank you for taking time to get back to me. Hope the rest of your weekend goes great! <><
Zowee! I just now found on FB a pastor who is advocating to take away the right of women to vote because it has lead to abortion. These kinds of Christians are the ones spoken about in the Bible, lovers of the law instead of God. Pharisees. I'm very much pro-life, but this kind of talk is NUTS!
I appreciate you drawing from Twitter/X and other social media platforms. One of the ways that Christian Nationalists have been able to evade serious notice from academics (whether intentionally or not, I don't know), is by building a Very Online community. Most academics tend to feel like social media content is beneath their notice - I don't think we live in that world anymore.
I’m so glad you noticed! This is spot on. It’s where the discourse is happening. And we need more attention to it.
Actually since completing my research, I’ve been building an ongoing database of CN tweets for this very reason. Receipts for days!
Love this!
More than 8 years ago I could tell that romantic nationalism was making a come-back in conservative circles. I remember begging some very online pastors to stop rage posting about the latest culture war outrage long enough to carefully consider what was going on with political theology.
I think more pastors are trying to get up to speed now, but most of what I still hear in response to the subject of Christian Nationalism is a quick deflection of the term as something used to describe anything remotely Christian within politics. I’m hopeful this is beginning to give way to more thoughtful engagement in the face of more obvious moves to leverage state power in the name of nominal Christianity. This kind of careful analysis is so helpful!
Appreciate this note. I agree that it’s often deflected—I kind of had someone do this just this past week!
This is very interesting indeed! I am a 70-year-old who has been a Christian since my baptism at age 13. I am also a conservative politically and socially. I am a member of my county's Republican headquarters, and so I "know some folks". But I personally have never met an actual Christian nationalist? Where do you find them? Do they make their identity known to all?
I mean, it’s not an organization, like a political party. It’s a loosely connected ideology. That said, you mostly find them connected online, though as I wrote about a couple months ago, they do occasionally hold conferences.
And yes, many of them are increasingly identifying with the CN label.
I had NO idea that they had conferences! I found a YouTube video of one, and my ears were assaulted with the piercing sound of a woman's voice screeching - YIKES! I'm slightly hungover this morning, so immediately the sound was turned off. The subtitle says "an ideology and movement advocating a fusion of Christian symbols with American civic life", which on the surface sounds pretty okay. But I'm going to look into this further. Thank you for taking time to get back to me. Hope the rest of your weekend goes great! <><
Zowee! I just now found on FB a pastor who is advocating to take away the right of women to vote because it has lead to abortion. These kinds of Christians are the ones spoken about in the Bible, lovers of the law instead of God. Pharisees. I'm very much pro-life, but this kind of talk is NUTS!
Oh yeah, they're big on repealing the 19th amendment. :/
Here's an article I wrote about the conference: https://bobstevenson.substack.com/p/so-i-went-to-see-the-christian-nationalists