“As for the beatings, the tarring and feathering, and the destruction of "heathen houses of devil-worship," he has a simple answer: "Join us! Our doors are open to every nationality, every race! Leave your sinful past behind and become one of us. Help us to make America great again."
– Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower (1993)
INTRODUCTION
During an interview with conservative education non-profit, Turning Point USA, far-right U.S. House representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA, 14th) encouraged her political party to fully embrace Christian nationalism. She exclaimed that “[Republicans] need to be a party of nationalism,” then subsequently doubled down on this statement with a qualification that echoes throughout contemporary American political discourse: “I am a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.” Though many may find Taylor-Greene’s statement to be alarming, the reality is that her words are not as abnormal as they may seem. The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in collaboration with the Brookings Institute, reports that over half of Republicans (and almost a third of Americans overall) are either adherents (21% of participants) or sympathizers (33% of participants) of Christian Nationalism. Christian Nationalism is a phenomenon that permeates American society and according to the PRRI, poses a major threat to the health of our democracy. For them, adherents of Christian Nationalism are people who strongly agree that the U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation and that our laws should be based on Christian values. They believe that if the U.S. moves away from its Christian foundations, our society will lose the very essence of our country and what it means to be truly American. As such, the adherent of Christian nationalism overall believes that God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society, and the nationalists themselves are thus the purveyors of this domination. Though not explicitly stated by the PRRI, part of its threat is Christian Nationalism’s roots in white supremacist and patriarchal logic that truly reflect the dark side of the American status quo. Many Americans can recognize the history of racial caste and male empowerment that coincide Christian nationalism that influence our way of life to this day, especially our political reality that empowers people like Marjorie Taylor-Greene, her constituents, the last seven years of GOP politics.
In response to this, there are large swaths of people, be it scholars or leaders on the political Left, who express outrage and at times surprise about the “rise of Christian Nationalism.” There was no better articulation of this surprise than in the press coverage and thought pieces that were published after January 6th, 2021 in response to the over 2,000 rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in order to overturn the 2020 election results. Many people expressed sentiments like “[I] never thought I would see anything like this in my life,” coupled with headlines like “The Capitol Rioters Aren’t Like Other Extremists.” This was a notable moment within the Christian nationalist movement since many of the rioters donned Christian nationalism iconography such as full-sized crosses, signs stating that “Jesus Saves,” and engaging in Christian rituals. As they breached the Capitol walls and associated themselves with explicitly nationalist, white supremacist groups. More explicitly, the January 6th insurrection was a bastion for Christian nationalism epitomized in the Jericho March – a group within the mob who explicitly called for God to bring down the walls of government.
In response, many people were dumbfounded as to why such an event can occur and had never been exposed to the depths of Christian nationalism. Pew Research data supports that 37% of people reacted to the Capitol attacks with anguish, horror, and shock. Second to this was general surprise and concern for the country (14% of participants). Although alarming, Christian Nationalism is not surprising. Christian nationalism has always been a foundation for the American elite and a bedrock of, as bell hooks labeled it, our imperialist white supremacist heteropatriarchy.
I hope to show this in two ways. First, by making an appeal to scholars within the psychology of religion who attempt to regard extremist religious movements as a novel. Typically, when groups are considered unusual, abnormal, or violent, there is a tendency to label them as cults or as exhibiting cult-like behavior. Christian nationalism is no stranger to this moniker as many, like writer Steve Zmyewski and Dr. Pamela Cooper-White, often identify it as exuding cult-like behavior. Knowing this, I will make the case that comparing Christian nationalism to cults adds to its surprise in a way that overlooks its foundations. I will do this by first analyzing the language of “cults” that are often employed by scholars to delineate when groups cross the threshold into surprising territory. Second, I will then follow this discussion with a more historical appeal to the overall claim that Christian nationalism is more an articulation of the status quo than of a new phenomenon that is on the rise. Overall, I aim to make it apparent that there is nothing new, per se, about Christian Nationalism, when viewed against the backdrop of American history. Plus, amid doing this, I will also solidify that the category of “cult” may distract people from a deep understanding of the mission of white supremacy that should be seen as synonymous with Christian nationalism.
THE NOVELTY CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM: Is Christian Nationalism Cult-Like?
The American Psychological Association Dictionary of Psychology defines “surprise” as an emotion typically resulting from the violation of an expectation or the detection of novelty in the environment. According to the Paul Ekman Group, surprise is one of the seven universal emotions in which the function is to focus our attention to help determine if the violation is dangerous or not. With this knowledge, the questions at stake in this essay are (1) in what ways, if at all, is Christian Nationalism novel and (2) is there something particularly inherent to Christian nationalism that should signal the mind towards a newfound danger?
Cultlike Behavior?
For many the answer to “Is Christian nationalism novel?” is an obvious yes by virtue of it being regarded as an extremist group. In her chapter “Why Are People Drawn in by Extremist Beliefs: Conscious Needs and Unconscious Lure” in The Psychology of Christian Nationalism, psychology, and religion professor, Dr. Pamela Cooper-White takes a deep dive into the various aspects of extremism within the group paying close attention to “the why” of the Christian nationalism movement. Concurrently, she explores the social and psychological variables that propel an individual to join extremist groups more generally and become a Christian Nationalist in specific.
Dr. Cooper-White argues that there are both conscious and unconscious motivations that explain why a person would adhere to Christian nationalist ideas. To this end, she begins with the conscious which, in short, includes: (1) a need for belonging and a sense of purpose, by way of what she calls “surround sound evangelization;” (2) fear of losing one’s white social status, resentment, and a desire for power; (3) fear of loss of patriarchal authority; and (4) the irrational lure of conspiracy theories. Such motivations are pertinent because they are “close-to-the-surface” feelings that can easily be described in a qualitative study. Cooper-White finds that most people who become supporters of Christian nationalism do not start out as right-wing political activists first, but rather start out as Christians first. It is from attending a Christian church that someone is then led into Christian nationalism. People are cultivated through highly effective organizing tactics that evangelicals have mastered to a science. They appeal to a wide variety of psychologically-affirming, spiritual thrills that through repetition, create a vibrant sense of community and a feeling of belonging to something special that transcends everyday life that is then co-opted and exploited by political leaders who interject into this process to bolster white nationalist power campaigns.
Cooper-White writes that “although it may seem shocking, the steps involved in this gradual induction [referring to the evangelism tactics of the conservative Christian churches] into the community are not so different from those of actual cults.” She then cites, psychologist and self-proclaimed “cult expert” Margaret Singer who identifies 15 various “tactics” that are emblematic of cult recruitment and subsequently maps those onto the tactics Christian Nationalist Movement. These tactics include invitation, encouragement to attend an event right away, love-bombing, gradual exposition that can result in isolation or lifestyle changes, sleep deprivation, control of access to information, manipulation, restricting dress, inducing guilt, inducing trance-like stakes, indirect directives, trickery, revision of personal history, peer pressure, emotional manipulation, and therapeutic pretensions.
It is here that I believe the introduction of the category of cult distracts from the truth of Christian nationalism. First, the tendency to associate all groups with the most extreme cases distracts from a nuanced view. For example, “cult-like” oftentimes gets conflated with “Jonestown-like” which does nothing to interrogate the particularities of a group at play, but rather works to sensationalize and garner a sense of fear and taboo. Second, the term cult itself does nothing to signal something that is distinctive about a group's operations other than that it has a negative connotation. And altogether, this stigma around cults adds to the element of surprise. Cooper-White acknowledges this also by recognizing that associating this process with cults would be shocking to the reader. Ultimately, by eliminating the category of “cult” altogether, we can be provided with a counter-reading of the phenomenology of Christian Nationalism that reveals the white supremacist mission more poignantly.
To begin, I believe that it is essential to trouble the waters of the normative ways of viewing cults. Doing so will provide a different, more nuanced view of Cooper-White's research. Professor emeritus of sociology and religious studies at the University of Oregon, Dr. Marion S. Goldman, outlines eight points of agreement that ring true amongst the widely regarded/cited literature on cults which here are referred to as “new religious movements” (NRMs). She came to these conclusions after conducting a close reading of four peer-reviewed collections of scholarship on the topic of new religions. These observations show that the ways in which cults and “cult-like” behavior have been understood have changed greatly and thus need to be reflected in greater discourse when invoking this language.
Goldman’s Observations
Goldman’s first observation is that cults are part of a continuum of religions and that they function in similar ways to established religions, often too similar to render them altogether distinctive. Evidence of this particular fact is riddled throughout and affirmed by The Psychology of Christian Nationalism. This makes it quite challenging to demarcate when a religious group is operating as a cult versus as an established tradition. This is because the difference between these groups are not necessarily recruitment tactics, the charisma of the leader, or the extent of their violence, but rather societal acceptance and the wait-time it takes to gain this acceptance. The time it takes for a movement to enter the mainstream is what differentiates an establish religious tradition from a new religious movement. Such nuance is shown in how new religious movements like the Quakers, the Mormons, and the Seventh-day Adventists, once viewed as “cults” are becoming more mainstream. Once a tradition enters the mainstream it becomes inappropriate to regard them as a cult. To be clear, this concept of “length of time” is not quantifiable, as some groups that are considered New Religions are actually older than many established religions (such as how Jainism was once considered a new religion in American society).
For example, it’s not shocking to say that evangelical Christianity has a history of violence (see KKK, conversion camps, etc.), attracts charismatic leaders (see televangelists and megachurches), and can use manipulation and coercive tactics toward its devout followers (“surround-sound evangelization); it is however shocking to say that it's like a cult. This is because it is popular, and it has established institutional presence. Evangelical Christianity is the most mainstream religious tradition in American society. Personally, having grown up in evangelical churches all my life, I can attest to all the ways that the ”cult-like” tactics have manifest in my own church settings. As you can see, cult language does not do much other than affirm the disparaging nature of its behavior.
Secondly, Goldman finds that new religious movements are integral to a vital, pluralistic, spiritual “marketplace” such that if using the language properly these groups are not discarded from discourse on religious pluralism. According to the Aspen Institute, Religious pluralism is the state of being where every individual in a religiously diverse society has the rights, freedoms, and safety to worship, or not, according to their conscience. Religious pluralism is the state of being where every individual in a religiously diverse society has the rights, freedoms, and safety to worship, or not, according to their conscience. Condemnation, or labeling a group as a cult, is a tell-tale way of excluding a group from this state of being. This must not be confused with condemning violence or prevent widespread hate; yet, saying that a group is a cult does not inherently do either.
Next, Goldman points out that within the scholarship the concept of “brainwashing” has been thoroughly debunked and rendered a myth. For more on this, one can look to scholars like James T. Richardson and Rebecca Moore who elegantly lay out the various arguments as to why this is the case. In a word, the concept of brainwashing is a pseudo-scientific category that began solely as a propaganda tactic to fuel Cold-War anti-communist sentiments. Currently, when it is employed as a reason for why someone participates in a group, it (is) (may be? Is often?) riddled with bias, misinformation, and sensationalisms.
Fourth, Goldman writes how despite there being elements of extreme group pressure associated with these groups, the mechanisms that are attributed to cults, such as the ones outlined by Singer, can also be found in other high-commitment groups like sports teams and, most apparent of all, political cells, and mainline churches.
Fifth, new religious movements attract devotees and minimize tensions with the host society because social networks reach outward to recruit new members. She then outlines how sociological data shows that most people recruited by new religious movements never join, and the majority of those who join leave within a year.
Next, Goldman highlights the role of charismatic leadership and explains that it is a process of interaction between individuals with unique leadership qualities and followers who need group guidance, and emotional protection can be met through a relationship with the leader whether it is direct or not. She finds that when these groups do succumb to collective violence, it's usually a reflection of the group's apocalyptic doctrine coupled with antagonism by outside whether it be through hostility or legal intervention. And lastly, new technologies, particularly the internet, amplify the reach and visibility of new religious movements.
From here alone, I hope one can see the efficacy of going to Goldman’s analysis to inform the psychology of Christian Nationalism. To Dr. Cooper-White’s credit, these observations are highly consistent with her findings. They agree that central to the sustaining of groups is their ability to attract devotees and the critical role of charismatic leaders. Yet what is not consistent is Dr. Goldman’s takeaways based on this knowledge. From these takeaways, Dr. Goldman acknowledges that the word “cult” is too loaded to be useful. She finds that the history of studying sociology of religion is riddled with old perspectives and incomplete methodologies, and advocates for scholars to move on from the language of cults. Goldman believes that we must open the subfield of cults to interdisciplinary discussion on charismatic leadership, gender and sexualities, health and healing, race and ethnicity, and immigration. This then switches someone from grappling with the novelty of these groups to assessing them based on their relationship to established power structures. In a word, it prevents ending the conversation there (that “this is cult and therefore bad”) to a deeper power analysis. In conclusion, cults are merely the pejorative term for a [new] religious movement. Yet to be fair some cults perhaps do deserve the pejorative moniker by virtue of their violence, though what remains is, to be honest in our condemnations and not confuse ourselves with the existence of these outdated understandings of people groups. Dr. Cooper White was clear that the main goal of her book was to tackle the truths of a toxic movement. and one cannot get to this truth without a nuanced, comprehensive understanding of New Religious Movements in America.
Here I think Dr. Cooper-White’s chapter would have benefitted from forgoing this language and showing how there is frankly no strong difference between your everyday church in terms of structure and organizing, and that which cultivates Christian nationalism. There is a difference, however, in the way they relate to power. The onus should thus then be put on the power structures that enliven the violence of Christian nationalism, then on the “cult-like” behavior of churches. At the end of it all, what Christian nationalism creates is a framework for people to feel more empowered in political life, to the detriment of minoritized groups and the political Other, based on their faith in Christ. What differentiates the 29% of people who are adherents/sympathizers from the 68% of people who are rejects/skeptics of Christian nationalism is merely their buy-in that Christian nationalist views are a legitimate schema for power acquisition. That is why, in her article “What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class,” Joan C. Williams, what drives nationalism is class resentment. What might seem novel, should not be what draws people into Christian nationalist groups, but the new and creative ways of power, influence, and “screen time” that rearticulate white supremacy, here on a metaphysical, and divine level.
THE DANGER OF CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM: What is Dangerous About Christian Nationalism?
Looking back at the PRRI statements that help to show if an individual is a Christian nationalist, I am left to wonder if these views are actually extremist or rather just help to legitimize the same phenomenon that has marked the United States of America since its inception: imperial white supremacist heteropatriarchy. Christianity has always been used to articulate whiteness and used by the powerful elite to sanction their behavior and stay in power. Whether it be through the forceful conversion of slaves as a form of assimilations to the ideal of the white-picketed-fence-”Christlike”-nuclear family. The white United States has always been a Christian nation until growing diversity and acceptance of alternative lifestyles challenged this stasis.
In this section, I argue that the danger of Christian Nationalism is not unprecedented and that it is part of the violence that makes the United States the United States. To make this argument I will address three common, oft employed, reasons why people believe Christian nationalism to be dangerous – which in turnerm make it seem surprising. First, Christian Nationalism is dangerous because it will disrupt American freedom of religion. Second, Christian Nationalism is dangerous because it emboldens imperialist, white supremacist heteropatriarchy in a new way. Finally, Christian Nationalism is dangerous because it is violent.
There has never truly been a separation between the sacred and the secular in in American political life. In his article, “Civil Religion in America” sociologist Robert N. Bellah writes how that “...the separation of church and state has not denied the political realm a religious dimension. Although matters of personal religious belief, worship, and association are strictly private affairs, there are, at the same time, certain common elements of religious orientation that the great majority of Americans share.” Bellah shed light on how Christianity and appeals to Christian mores have played a critical role in the development of American institutions. Bellah argues that the United States public square operates under a civil religion, simply coded as “the American way of life” or the “American dream” which has always been filtered with Christo-centric language. Due to this fact, one cannot simply decouple it without ignoring how politics has operated outside of the language of the Constitution.
Religious studies professor, Winnifred F. Sullivan, makes this point more succinctly. For her, religious freedom in the United States is an impossibility. This is because, although there is a freedom from established religion on paper, there is seldom a separation in practice. Therefore, one pessimistic reading of Christian nationalism is that perhaps they are just more honest about this fact. Yet, I believe that even in this honestly, what remains is for people to acknowledge that phrases like the “American way” “Make America Great Again” and “God’s Country” are also just synonyms for White (supremacist) America.
Christian nationalism does not embolden imperialist, white supremacist heteropatriarchy in a new way, it emboldens in familiar ways – that’s precisely why it's coded as conservative, ultra-conservative at that. It’s conservative because it upholds the status quo. As Cooper-White writes, this “new breed” of American Christian life, is now over 200 years old, and in the time period since the early 19th century and now, Evangelicalism encompasses the majority of Americans.
To be clear, in no way do I want to underscore the violence of the Christian nationalist movement, I just hope to make the claim that it is not more violent, especially in a country that has literally undergone Civil Wars to uphold similar values.
CONCLUSION
I began this essay with a quote from Octavia Butler’s 1993 sci-fi classic Parable of the Sower. Though written 30-years ago, before the Marjorie Taylor-Greens ascent, the Trump administration, and the January 6th riot, the quote rings as if it was a commentary on our political life today. Her foresight is evidence of her brilliance, but also proof that such sentiments are not new but generally expected. Octavia Butler expected the violence of the 2020s because America history is also violent. Christian nationalism is not surprising. It is not surprising because it is rooted in and builds off the status quo.
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