Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation s capital to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden s Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election. | Getty Images/Samuel Corum
While Christian nationalism is found in all sectors of society, evangelical Protestants are more likely than any other religious group to sympathize with and accept it, according to notable academic researcher Andrew Whitehead.
An associate professor of Sociology at Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis, Whitehead was part of a webinar titled “Democracy and Faith Under Siege: Responding to Christian Nationalism,” which took place on Wednesday. He shared polling information about the extent to which people in the United States sympathized with the worldview and moral framework of Christian nationalism.
Jan. 28, 2021
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Itâs impossible to understand the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol without addressing the movement that has come to be known as Christian nationalism.
It includes assumptions of nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy and heteronormativity, along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism. It is as ethnic and political as it is religious. Understood in this light, Christian nationalism contends that America has been and should always be distinctively âChristianâ from top to bottom â in its self-identity, interpretations of its own history, sacred symbols, cherished values and public policies â and it aims to keep it this way.
Christian nationalists and QAnon followers tend to be anti-Semitic. That was seen in the Capitol attack. Paul A. Djupe, Jacob Dennen A demonstrator prays with a wooden cross as rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg News) Three weeks ago, ardent Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to stop Congress from counting electoral college votes and to overturn the presidential election. Observers have identified a wide array of political symbols on display among the insurrectionists, including a large wooden cross, a noose, T-shirts, Viking hammers, historic American flags and anti-Semitic symbols. Two key themes appeared: first, and most obviously, support for Donald Trump; and second, religious belief, especially as expressed through Christian symbolism. Some organizers billed the event as the “Jericho March,” a reference to a biblical story in which Israelites took the city of Jericho. The far-right group the Proud Boy
How did the so-called followers of Christ become the same people trying to uphold racism and topple the government? Well, friends, it all boils down to two words…Trash Theology.
Are we repeating a theological crisis one that constitutes a threat to divide us?
Written By:
Jim Krapf, Worthington | 10:40 pm, Jan. 15, 2021 ×
Jim Krapf sports the International Festival T-shirt he designed for this year s event. (Ryan McGaughey/The Globe)
The U.S. Civil War was the result of an unresolved theological crisis. In his second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln pointed out that people on both sides “prayed to the same God” and “read the same Bible.” Given those commonalities, it would seem like these people should have been able to resolve the question of slavery without resorting to arms. They could not.