Beyond the Tribe: Why Religion Makes for an Unhealthy Nationalism
David French, veteran, lawyer, and opinion writer for various publications, including the New York Times and The Atlantic, wrote an opinion piece, “One Reason the Trump Fever Won’t Break,” in the New York Times on an aspect of Christian Nationalism and how a version of it is being used to shore up support for Donald Trump. I profoundly respect David, and I don’t say that because I’m about to rip into him; I simply love reading everything the man writes. This intellectual devotion and curiosity about his thinking gets me the side-eye from some, particularly in atheistic and humanist circles, since David is a Christian, and I, by all but the most liberal of definitions, am definitely not. Perhaps it’s sharing the same first name, which certainly carries a great history, Biblical and otherwise, but the love of ideas drives me in my reading, and French seems someone of a similar mind.
This is why, in reading his article and the commentary that many have when promoting it, I started shaking my head and thinking back on my own journey of religious faith. I grew up a Christian fundamentalist, believing in the inerrant authority of Biblical scripture, the centrality of faith as an epistemic path for Truth, and ethics derived from the person of Jesus as understood through the epistles and other writings. I was Protestant and Baptist, and later, when attending Grace Bible College (now Grace Christian University), I fell head-over-heels in love with the intellectual theology of mid-Acts dispensationalism and swam around in the muddy waters of the King-James-only framing concerning Bible translations. Those are topics for another time, and I mention them only for those who want to go down theological rabbit holes in their internet sleuthing.
Suffice to say, considering Christianity through the lens of intellectual rigor was how I largely considered my faith and, ironically, provided the prompting that led me to leave it all behind. Regardless, there was a tension that existed then, as it continues today in different forms, between the intellectual ponderings of believers and the fervency of considering faith as an epistemic straight arrow to the Truth bullseye. The emotion-first tool of faith has long been used as a post hoc tool for rationalization, just as there exists a number of secular variants, all of which boil down to how ideas serve as more than just declarations of how the world works, but often more so as directing social attention to the group the person belongs to.
Your Beliefs Are Less About Reality and More About Allegiance to a Group
When we want something, there is a context supporting why we want it, and providing the means to get it, albeit to varying degrees of social support or shaming. Beliefs, at the conscious level, here, are shorthand declarations (supported by an enormous amount of unconscious processing) about how that context works and provide the rationalization for why we then behave or engage the way we do.
The Psychological Roots of National Identity
That tension was a constant source of emotional turmoil (though admittedly, this may be overstating it) for me, feeling at once the pull to see my form of faith as superior while also feeling profoundly left out of larger conversations and social experiences. All of which brings me to this line from the article:
We mainly think of Christian nationalism as a theology or at least as a philosophy. In reality, the Christian nationalist movement that actually matters is rooted in emotion and ostensibly divine revelation, and it’s that emotional and spiritual movement that so stubbornly clings to Donald Trump. (David French)
“We” here is an interesting identifier because who is the “we” that is being referred to? Certainly not the majority of Christian believers who, as even French notes later, have little knowledge of the various theological systems and philosophies that undergird apocalyptic literature and prophetic scriptural analysis. My own anecdotal life experience supports this, as I was always at pains when talking with fellow believers who would much rather read the puerile writings of Max Lucado than get into discussions of Dispensational or Covenant theological systems, or ponder the epistemic concerns of presuppositionalism. Discussions of faith as a “relationship” were the lynchpin pulling at the foundations of any capacity for social bonding. Hence, the “we” that French belongs to immediately struck me even as I smiled and sighed in memory.
It is a proper grokking of the “relationship” language that is missed in the ongoing analysis opinion. Christian Nationalism is considered, particularly in its rhetoric, as “unhinged,” and the conclusion is to consider it as “not serious, but it’s very dangerous.”
No, it’s very serious, AND it’s very dangerous. Spending so much time in the social halls of intellectual exploration and not enough time with the masses is where such a conclusion misses the centrality of humanity and leads to French being shocked when confronted by a friend saying they agreed until the Holy Spirit told him Trump was anointed to lead. I get that the “seriousness” is more about noting nationalism’s lack of intellectual rigor, but describing it that way only buries the real seriousness of the matter.
From Idolatry to Inclusion: Reconciling Religious Values with Patriotism
There is a not-small segment of the population for whom democracy, the rule of law, and social norms are to be cast aside, and the usage of ends-justified violence is increasingly seen as a moral imperative. That is most definitely serious and resting on a, and here is where French’s personal theology is less conservative and sin-focused, simple acknowledgment of the U.S. populace’s increasing secularization, is failing again to miss how humanity is driven not by Truth but by “relationship.”
It will be a nationalism rooted more in emotion and mysticism than theology. (David French)
Yes, it will, but that’s what nationalism has always been about. The only thing that changes is the substance of the paper-thin intellectual veil being pulled over when the activists want to appear as adults even as they’re surrounded by the dumpster fire of their childish actions.
What French and others fail to grasp when looking at the social movement of their own faith tradition is how the roots of the problem are found in that same milieu. It is just as real, and certainly is felt by the masses as more real, as the intellectual version that ponders issues of “virtue in the public square” and the “balance of order and liberty.” Critical reflective reason will always be a road less traveled because it takes effort, and faith frankly takes none at all.
The reality is that Christianity, like any religion or ideology that rests on a dualism of mind/matter, intellect/emotion, and science/faith, will, when adherents are faced with perceived uncertainty in one’s social power and future resource accrual, side with the ego-enhancing power of rationalization in service of the tribe. The tribe serves as a bulwark against the present, in service of an imagined future that only they see and only they can bring about. As Hebrews 11:1 states, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The “hoped for” and “not seen” point to a future that hasn’t happened yet, where fantasies take root, and everything can be justified to achieve a desired end because the consequences are not felt there, only the effects of having done what is “right.”
This is where statements like those recently made by the bad orange man on what is supposedly the holiest day for Christians, that of Easter, filled with cursing and calls for war crimes, will not result in almost anyone questioning their previously given allegiance. Ethics is not a general set of principles for those who think of tribe first, but a means of declaring solidarity with one another. The worse the things that dear-leader says serve as a way to rub the chaff from the believing few. Who but the most committed would be willing to set aside any personal misgivings in the service of the supposed greater good? Every heinous thing defended serves as a way to declare their loyalty and become even more secure within the in-group.
For those like French, who see reflective humility as a good, blind allegiance will never sit right. Unfortunately, in a world seemingly continuing on a path of an uncertain future, blind allegiance never felt so good.