What Can We Do?
Learn why this movement grows in power,
becoming a threat to democracy.
Discover why we see the world so differently from others.
Find out how to tell a story of hope, rather than fear,
that will make a difference in our world.
Scary and Terrifying
That's how many people describe their feelings about what's happening in our nation, but fear drives people farther apart and solves nothing.
Hope empowers people, and hope is that we need now.
When you complete this course you will understand Christian Nationalism better,
and you will be able to tell a story of hope for everyone.
TAKE 45 MINUTES TO WATCH THE FULL VIDEO.
THEN SPEND TIME WITH THE SIX LEARNING MODULES BELOW, EACH WITH ITS OWN VIDEO AND PRACTICE SESSIONS.
Learn the history of the movement -
How to challenge the movement and the story it tells -
And learn to tell a different that story than inspires hope.
WELCOME TO THIS INTRODUCTORY COURSE ON CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM
LISTEN AND LEARN
There are five key active listening techniques you can use to help you become a more effective listener:
1. Pay Attention
Give the speaker your undivided attention, and acknowledge the message. Recognize that non-verbal communication also "speaks" loudly.
Look at the speaker directly.
Put aside distracting thoughts.
Don't mentally prepare a rebuttal!
Avoid being distracted by environmental factors. For example, side conversations.
"Listen" to the speaker's body language .
2. Show That You’re Listening
Use your own body language and gestures to show that you are engaged.
Nod occasionally.
Smile and use other facial expressions.
Make sure that your posture is open and interested.
Encourage the speaker to continue with small verbal comments like yes, and "uh huh."
3. Provide Feedback
Our personal filters, assumptions, judgments, and beliefs can distort what we hear. As a listener, your role is to understand what is being said. This may require you to reflect on what is being said and to ask questions.
Reflect on what has been said by paraphrasing. "What I'm hearing is... ," and "Sounds like you are saying... ," are great ways to reflect back.
Ask questions to clarify certain points. "What do you mean when you say... ." "Is this what you mean?"
Summarize the speaker's comments periodically.
4. Defer Judgment
Interrupting is a waste of time. It frustrates the speaker and limits full understanding of the message.
Allow the speaker to finish each point before asking questions.
Don't interrupt with counterarguments.
5. Respond Appropriately
Active listening is designed to encourage respect and understanding. You are gaining information and perspective. You add nothing by attacking the speaker or otherwise putting her down.
Be candid, open, and honest in your response.
Assert your opinions respectfully.
Treat the other person in a way that you think they would want to be treated.
Tip: If you find yourself responding emotionally to what someone said, say so. And ask for more information: "I may not be understanding you correctly, and I find myself taking what you said personally. What I thought you just said is XXX. Is that what you meant?"
In the video, I introduce you briefly to many early and current leaders of Christian Nationalism. Click the button below, and you will find them listed, with my video comments, and with links to other information about them. Click on the links and continue to learn about them.
Spend time with each of the four practices below. Think, meditate, contemplate. Write down your thoughts, reactions, ideas - and a few actions you might take going forward.
Vote
Elect people willing to speak out
Some have called voting our sacred right. In a democracy, we choose our elected leaders by going to the polls. This is why voter suppression, redistricting, and voting laws to restrict the number of people who can vote all are such a danger to democracy.
We need elected leaders who create the laws and judges who enforce the laws to be people who will speak out and challenge this movement.
Confront
Be public and confident in confronting misinformation and lies
The more we learn about the movement – the more we listen to what they are saying – the more we will recognize misinformation and lies. When we hear them, we must challenge them and confront people who are spreading it all.
Speak
Speak truth with respect and compassion
To call out misinformation and lies does not compromise respect and compassion. How we call it out might, so we must be careful how we do it. I believe all people deserve respect and compassion. That’s why calling it out is one way to “save them from themselves” (if we can) and to keep other people from accepting what they say.
Refuse
Refuse to be their “enemy”
We must challenge the movement and its leaders without seeing them as enemies. They routinely call people outside the movement “enemies” – and demonize them and call for them to be defeated – but I refuse to do the same.
Katherine Stewart is an American journalist and author who often writes about issues related to the separation of church and state. Her books include The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children and The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. Learn more about her here on her website.
In her well-researched book about this movement, Katherine Stewart tells us who the leaders and funders of this movement are and exposes their goal of power. You can learn all of this as well:
How early leaders made abortion the public "cause"
How the movement promotes white supremacy (even while denying it)
What their organized plans for creating the laws state by state
What they mean by "religious liberty"
Why this can be called "a global holy war"
Here are some summary thoughts from her book:
[Page numbers are from the Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.]
“While many Americans still believe that the Christian right is primarily concerned with “values,” leaders of the movement know it’s really about power - they prefer autocrats to democrats.” (p.40)
“Over the past four decades, Christian nationalists have achieved remarkable progress toward a longstanding goal: to convert America’s public schools into conservative Christian academies, even as they weaken or even destroy public education altogether.” (p.186)
“America’s Christian nationalists have not overlooked Putin’s authoritarian style of government; they have embraced it as an ideal.” (p.272)
“We don’t need to create a new majority; we just need to give our existing majority the power to which it is entitled. Addressing gerrymandering, voter suppression, and other abuses of the electoral process that continue to hobble American democracy will be a central aspect of any effort to meet the challenge of Christian nationalism.” (p.276)
TELLING A STORY OF HOPE
Stories and Common Sense
As I said in my video, people believe something is common sense because they have heard it repeatedly. In Christian Nationalism circles, what they have heard for 40 years, reinforced at home, in church, in the media they pay attention to, is what they “know” to be true – “just common sense.” For instance:
o America is a Christian nation.
o The liberals have corrupted our country.
o Abortion is murder and homosexuality is evil.
o We need Christians in office who will lead with a “biblical worldview.”
People opposed to Christian Nationalism have repeatedly heard just the opposite in the last 40 years – at home and church, perhaps, and in the media they listen to:
o America welcomes people of all religions.
o Being liberal, progressive, is what our country needs.
o People can make their own decisions about whether to have a baby or about whom they love.
o We need people in office who will lead our nation with integrity and compassion, separate from any religion.
George Lakoff's books, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think and Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, provide the model for this course. How we see the world takes one of two primary paths – toward a Strict father worldview or a Nurturant parent worldview. As I talk about in my video, there is a continuum for everything, including this. None of us is all one or the other, and there are extremes on both ends. I am, however, convinced that this model provides a good way of understanding the divisions among us today.
These additional articles might be helpful in exploring this in more detail:
https://www.npr.org/2016/09/13/493615864/when-it-comes-to-our-politics-family-matters
https://commonslibrary.org/frame-the-debate-insights-from-dont-think-of-an-elephant/
WATCH THE VIDEO
Then click the button below to find links to a variety of articles and interviews
to learn more about the 400 years of history described in the video.
CHALLENGE VIOLENCE
Violent language leads to physical violence.
We’ve all seen the violent images in recent years. White men threatening violence by their words and actions.
https://6abc.com/patriot-front-philadelphia-protest-white-supremacist/10858983/
We know that actual violence, brutal acts including mass shootings, has come from the violent rhetoric in online forums.
STOP USING VIOLENT LANGUAGE
Frequently used violent language
https://hopeandsafety.org/learn-more/violent-language/
Have a trusted friend say the words to you – with different tones of voice, body language – imagine someone you don’t trust, someone who does not like you – how do you feel? What do you want to do or say?
Kristin Kobes Du Mez is an evangelical Christian historian. In her book, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, tells the story of evangelical Christianity’s “embrace of militant masculinity, an ideology that enshrines patriarchal authority and condones the callous display of power, at home and abroad.”
She concludes her book with these words:
Although the evangelical cult of masculinity stretches back decades, its emergence was never inevitable. Over the years it has been embraced, amplified, challenged, and resisted. Evangelical men themselves have promoted alternative models, elevating gentleness and self-control, a commitment to peace, and a divestment of power as expressions of authentic Christian manhood. Yet, understanding the catalyzing role militant Christian masculinity has played over the past half century is critical to understanding American evangelicalism today, and the nation’s fractured political landscape. Appreciating how this ideology developed over time is also essential for those who wish to dismantle it. What was once done might also be undone.
Learn to Tell Your Story of Hope
One goal of this introductory course is that you will be able to craft a narrative – a story of hope – that you can tell repeatedly until people feel like it is common sense. Here is an outline you might find helpful as you learn to tell your story. Jot down words, thoughts, ideas as they come to you, and then write your story.
How do I imagine the world - as I want it to be?
How is that world different from the one this movement wants it to be?
What changes need to happen for us to live in that kind of world?
What can I do to help make those changes happen?