American Idolatry by Whitehead Andrew L.;

Author:Whitehead, Andrew L.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christianity and Culture;Christianity and politics—United States—History—21st century;Christianity and culture—United States—History—21st century;Nationalism—Religious aspects—Christianity;Nationalism—United States—History—21st century;REL012110;REL084000;SOC039000
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2023-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

Christian Nationalism and Interpersonal Violence

Christian nationalism is also intimately intertwined with a comfort with violence at the individual level. As we will see in an upcoming chapter, white Americans have appealed to defending this “Christian nation” to authorize unspeakable violence against Black Americans. For white Americans, upholding a Christian nation has meant defending the racial order.

Tracking letters and announcements from Citizens’ Councils throughout the 1950s and 1960s, historian J. Russell Hawkins demonstrates how scores of everyday, churchgoing Christians firmly believed that God created different races and desired their separation.22 The United States, in their estimation, ignored God’s will in this matter at their own peril.

Historian Kelly Baker highlights how these widely held beliefs resonated in the arguments made by members of the Ku Klux Klan.23 She shows how the ideology of protecting a “white Protestant nation” baptized the racial views and use of violence of groups like the KKK. While KKK membership and participation never held majority status, the KKK’s beliefs were in no way fringe. Groups like the KKK were present in almost every single state. They counted many powerful men as friendly to their goals or even dues-paying members. This included the governors of Indiana and Colorado in the 1920s.

An association between white Christian nationalism and a comfort with racialized individual-level violence continues to this day. In a recent survey, when asked if “police officers in the United States shoot blacks more often because they are more violent than whites,” close to 50 percent of white Americans who strongly embrace Christian nationalism agreed.24

The death penalty is another example of individual-level violence—albeit state sanctioned—strongly associated with white Christian nationalism. One report using 2007 data found that Christian nationalism was among the strongest predictors of Americans favoring use of the death penalty.25 Recent surveys say more of the same: seven out of ten white Ambassadors agree with the statement, “The biggest problem with the death penalty is we don’t use it enough.”26 One vocal supporter of Christian nationalism explicitly argued this very point.27

The statistics surrounding the death penalty suggest that as a society we aren’t good at administering this form of justice. Since 1973 alone, 185 people wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death have been exonerated. Furthermore, the rates of minority groups being sentenced to death are disproportionately higher than those of whites.28 As the Equal Justice Initiative so aptly states, “The question we need to ask about the death penalty in America is not whether someone deserves to die for a crime. The question is whether we deserve to kill.”29

Given the rate at which innocent people are sentenced to death, perhaps we Christians should consider leading the charge to stop executions. Perhaps Christians should abdicate this form of violence that white Christian nationalism is so keen to protect.

Survey data of the American public soon after the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021, demonstrate that Christian nationalism is strongly associated with support for the following beliefs regarding forms of political violence: the riots at the US Capitol building on January

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.