- When he was
in the Birmingham jail,
Dr. King said,
"When I look at all the
injustices in the world
and I drive past churches
and I see these high steeples,
I ask myself, "What kind
of people worship there?
What do they care about?
Are they at work in the world
for those things
which look like love
and look like justice
and look like truth?
What are they?"
- I live six blocks
from the Capitol
and I was on yet
another zoom meeting
and I get a text from
one of my staff saying,
"Have you seen what's going on?
Turn on your television."
And then I heard all the
helicopters flying around.
- USA, USA, USA...
- I was at home when I got
an alert on my computer.
- USA, USA, USA...
- I was sitting at home
turning on the news
to see the capitol
being overrun.
- Fight, fight, fight...!
- I could not believe the
images that I was seeing.
People b*ating up
police officers.
- You work for us!
- Attacking the capitol itself.
- It felt surreal.
You know, is this
really my country?
- This scene
that you're seeing right
now on television is,
is just, is absolutely stunning.
The idea that these people
have come from outside
and broken into the capitol
and decided to take the
center floor like this.
- I was at home,
I was watching,
and I noticed
on the screen
attackers had finally
reached the Senate
and were on the
floor of the Senate.
And as I was watching, I
saw one of the assaulters
carry a Christian flag
onto the floor of the US Senate.
And it really became
obvious to me,
having written books
about this thr*at,
having talked about
this thr*at for years,
that it had been realized.
- Thank you God.
- Christian nationalists
were the primary organizers
of the att*ck on the
United States Capitol.
- We have to understand how
they understand it and
how they understand it is,
overthrowing this
legitimate election
is part of their
calling as Christians.
To see it actually happen,
to watch it live,
as a Christian, I felt
like a 10-pound weight had
been dropped into my stomach.
- And I knew that
we were fighting
for the fate of democracy
from here on out.
Oh I looked
All around me
And His face
I could not see
But I know
That through the lattice
He beholdeth
Even me
Though God slay me
yet I'll trust him
I shall then
Come forth as gold
More than gold
For I know
That He still liveth
For I feel
Him in my soul
- I was 16, 17-years old
when I became a Christian.
I wanted to be part of a group.
- I got pulled in by some
friends into a youth ministry
at an evangelical church.
- I grew up going to church
two, three times a week.
- I'd never been in a
church and I was curious.
Now, I'm an
evangelical minister.
- I can't remember a time
when I wasn't going to church.
- I've been a Christian
my whole life.
- In the church I grew up in,
there was a Christian flag
on one side of the podium
and an American flag on the
other side of the podium.
And we often had special
services for the 4th of July,
so there was this sense that
America and Christianity
are like baseball and apple pie
and we celebrate them together.
- What's happened in our country
over the last couple of years,
evangelicalism got married
with a political activism,
particularly conservative
political activism.
And now, you could argue that
that's eclipsed the
original definition
and evangelicalism has morphed
into this cultural
and political movement
that some people are now
saying is better described as,
"Christian nationalism."
- I'm a Christian nationalist.
I have nothing to be ashamed of
because that's what
most Americans are.
We're proud of our faith.
- Christian nationalism
is basically the idea
that America was founded
as a so-called,
"Christian nation,"
and that our laws should
be based on the Bible.
- The truth is this...
America was founded
as a Christian nation.
- No Christian with
half a brain would say,
"We support religious
freedom." we support the truth.
- We're taking
back our authority.
We're taking back a country
that is already ours!
- And the Bible says that
we'll take it by fooorce!
That's what the Bible says!
- It's not just exclusive
to White evangelicals.
You see a lot of
Pentecostals involved.
You see a lot of conservative
Catholics involved
in Christian nationalism.
- You can have people
who don't go to church.
Really, it's an identity
linked to who Americans are
and who they believe
Americans ought to be.
- God bless each and
every single one of you.
- Christian nationalism
is a deeply felt
emotional connection between
the fate of the nation
and the fate of the church.
So when someone says,
"America is in danger,"
at the heart level,
people are also thinking,
"The church is in danger,
my faith is in danger,
my religious liberties,"
it's all a package.
- I think there
are a lot of ways
to try to get a handle
on Christian nationalism.
At a very basic level, it's
the belief that America
has a special, God-ordained
role in human history.
But here's the big issue, and
it's a big issue for America.
If I have decided
that America is irreplaceable
in God's story,
has a role to play
that only America can
play in God's story,
and democracy gets in the
way, democracy has to go.
- Elections are about who's
gonna hold on to power.
It's a fight over power
and I'm pretty sure
that man's lust for power will
not end until the last breath
of the last man is
taken on this planet.
Do you agree with me?
- Yes.
- 100% fact.
The elites are absolutely
terrified of you.
- Yeah!
- They are terrified
of God's people
because God's people
have woken up.
They're awake, they ain't woke.
They're awake
- That's right.
- And they're showing up
in record numbers.
- The main thing to remember
about Christian nationalism is
despite the use of the
word, "Christian," in it,
it is largely a
political movement.
It's an agenda that seeks
to change American society
through politics.
- Exodus 18:21, "Choose
from among you, Godly men,
to lead the thousands,
the hundreds,
the fifties and the tens."
Unfortunately, we've
not done a very good job
at putting those kinds
of people into office.
The only way we're
gonna fix that
is if every single
one of you steps out
and does what God
has called us to do.
- Yeah.
- It's a command,
it's not a suggestion.
It's a command
to choose from among
you, Godly people!
- So many conservative
leaning churches
have been drawn
into these networks
where they're essentially being
turned into partisan
political cells.
So what unites this movement
is not any sort of
distinct theology,
but more like a common
political vision.
- I try to be a servant
of God and, by the way,
I'm about six weeks away
from concluding my service
as a state representative
and perhaps moving into the
Secretary of State roll.
I guess that's an endorsement.
God bless you. Thank
you for listening to me.
And let's go, Brandon!
- Christian nationalism,
I think right now,
is probably the most
powerful it has ever been.
There's just so much going on
under a lot of folks' radar
that they're not
even really aware of.
- God bless you guys.
Hello North Carolina!
I love you so much
and I love this state.
There are, today in America,
20 million more
evangelical Christians
we can mobilize and
get to the polls.
And we're gonna do it.
- Christian nationalism in
America is well-established,
well-organized, and well-funded.
And I wanna stress that
last statement, especially,
"Well-funded."
We are talking
about organizations
that have budgets
that run sometimes
in the tens of millions,
hundreds of millions.
Collectively, when
you add it all up,
you're probably
talking about an excess
of a billion dollars annually
from these Christian
nationalist organizations.
- We put voter guides in
thousands of churches.
You couldn't get away from us.
We were in your text
message, we were calling you,
we were at the door,
we were in your church.
And you know what? We
didn't stop until you voted.
And I don't wanna
scare anybody here,
but we had 147
different data points
that we tracked on every
one of those voters.
Everything from where they
lived to their voting history,
to various consumer
background on those folks,
like what magazines they
read, what TV they watched,
what kind of car they own,
whether or not they owned a g*n.
If you were one of
these 1.8 million
after we contacted
you like that,
84% of those people voted,
a 9% increase in turnout.
And they are the reason why
North Carolina went red,
and they're the reason
why it's gonna stay red!
- These really powerful
national organizations,
they're driving the agenda.
- This feminist movement
that's infected the minds
of young women
across the country.
- Christian nationalists
don't like feminism,
they want to roll that back.
They are appalled at the
idea of L-G-B-T-Q rights.
They want to roll those back.
They do not like legal abortion.
They want to end that
in all 50 states.
They do not like the idea
that we have a secular
public school system.
- I frankly don't think
the Department of
Education should exist.
- They think public schools
ought to either be Christianized
or they would move to a
system of private schools
funded through vouchers.
There's a wave of censorship.
- Critical race theory
is state-sponsored racism
and it should be opposed in
every school in our land.
- They don't like that there's
material in public libraries
that they consider
offensive or unbiblical.
They want to remove that.
- Burn it, burn it!
- Christian nationalist
ideas are not very popular
in the political sphere.
So majorities of people want to
protect a woman's
right to choose.
Majorities of people want gay
people to be able to marry.
But what's happening is, if
White Christian nationalists
can't win the popularity battle,
can't win the
majority of voters,
what they're gonna do is
use the levers of democracy
to enshrine minority rule.
So that even if
they're not a majority
in our democracy, in our voting,
they can still get their way.
- This is a movement
that represents
a minority of the population,
but they have disproportionate
influence in our politics,
precisely because they've
got this infrastructure
that serves to turn out the vote
in disproportionate numbers.
In a country where 40 to
50% of people don't vote,
you don't need a majority to
dominate an election cycle.
All you need is a
disproportionately activated
and motivated and
organized minority.
- I'm to the place right
now, if you vote Democrat,
I don't even want you
around this church.
You can get out! You can get
out, you demon! You can get out
you baby-butchering
election thief!
- Since there's no prospect
that we're gonna do anything
about gerrymandering
and the Senate is
created in such a way
as to give massive
disproportionate
power to rural areas,
I think that we are
on the precipice
of not just having
minority rule,
but having radical,
minority rule.
By which I mean, not only is
the minority more radical,
but a smaller portion
of the electorate
will have greater clout.
- We Christians are standing up
and we are going to impose
Christian rule in this country.
- As a White evangelical,
I find that to be
a very scary thing,
and yet it's happening
all across our country.
- So many Christians are
confused by what they're seeing.
They're concerned about
the decaying culture.
And they're wondering, "What
are we supposed to do?"
Ladies and gentlemen,
we cannot be silent
any longer.
The Joe Biden administration
is the most evil
presidential administration
in the history of the
United States of America!
It's time for
Christians to stand up,
to push back, to speak out.
That is the responsibility
of God's people.
- Socially
conservative Christians
who oppose abortion
and who believe in a traditional
understanding of family,
that is not, in and of
itself, Christian nationalism.
For instance, most
conservative Christians
who are deeply
concerned about abortion
are because they care about
vulnerable human beings.
One can agree or
disagree with that,
but that is an impulse
that is rooted in something
that I think most people
would believe to be
good and healthy for
a functioning society.
That's not the case
if what is happening
is a valorization
of power itself.
- "Whereas, we, the church,
are God's governing
body on the earth.
Whereas, we have been given
legal power from heaven and
now exercise our authority."
- There are people who are
quite open about saying
that they, "Yes," they would
like to be a theocracy.
"Yes," they are postliberal.
- "This country was founded on
Judeo-Christian principles."
- They don't believe
in a multicultural,
liberal democracy,
in which you have a
variety of lifestyles.
They actually say, "Screw
that. This is our turn
to impose our values on
the rest of the country."
- This is not a movement
about Christian values.
This is a movement
about Christian power,
raw, rank power.
- "We decree that
the blood of Jesus
covers and protects our nation."
- What happens to
atheists in this society?
What happens to secular people?
What happens to the people
who don't believe this stuff?
- "We decree
that America shall be saved!"
- So I think that
where we're going
is a very dangerous place.
- I think we are about to find
out how big a thr*at it is.
- God wants America to be saved.
- Yes!
- And we're calling
for new politicians
to rise up, new
school board members,
new legislators.
- It's very easy to see this
as something that is
outside of government.
It's not in power.
That could all
change very quickly.
- Our definition of
what would never happen
keeps getting pushed out
into more extreme places.
- USA!
USA!
USA!
USA!
USA!
- The thing that keeps me
up at night is that
we lose democracy
and that this country slides
into a theocratic nation.
- Yes...
It's possible. It's
absolutely possible.
We're closer to it now than
we ever have been before,
and America is on a precipice.
And I personally don't know
if we're gonna stop ourselves
from going over the other side.
- Is Christian
nationalism, "Christian?"
- Is Christian
nationalism, "Christian?"
Isn't that cool? That's
a great question. Uhmm...
No, it isn't.
- It's not biblical,
it's not Christianity.
It's a perversion
of the Christian message.
- Being a Christian is about
the values of inclusion,
working for the needs of the
marginalized, peace building.
- Christian nationalism
is certainly not based on
the values of the gospel.
- Our ethos says,
"Love your enemies."
Our ethos says, "Bless
those who persecute you."
Our ethos is, "Act justly,
love kindness, walk humbly."
This should be our time.
We should be blazing forth
as a countercultural example.
And instead, we are
leading the charge often
of malice and cruelty, and
division and partisanship,
and that is grievous.
- There's no way you can
look at Jesus in the gospel
and put him on
the side of greed,
on the side of injustice,
on the side of wrong.
And oftentimes,
what you end up with
is people who are so loud
about what God says so little
about. And so, quiet about
what God says so much about.
So they're so loud
against gay people.
They're so loud against
a woman's right to
have an abortion.
They're so loud in cutting
taxes for the wealthy.
They're so loud when
it comes to g*ns.
They're so loud on those things,
but they're so quiet on,
"How do we end poverty?
How do we care for
the least of these?"
You, in essence, being loud
about what God says so little,
and you're being far too quiet
about what God
says so much about.
- I view the United
States and its government
under the values of
God, God's law first.
- I believe that we were
founded as a Christian nation.
I believe that we should
be a Christian nation.
It's literally in
our constitution.
- We are a Christian
nation. Our entire founding
is based on those
Judeo-Christian values.
- I do not believe in the
separation of church and state.
You cannot take God
out of anything.
- We're one nation under God.
And if we can't be
a Christian nation,
the light into the world,
then the evil will reign,
darkness will reign.
- One of the things
that I kind of
specialize in is the
myths and disinformation
that make up the Christian
nationalist identity.
It's things like, "The
founding fathers prayed
at the constitutional
convention."
And that, "Our laws are based
on the Ten Commandments."
And that, "George
Washington knelt in the snow
at Valley Forge and prayed."
None of that is true,
but it's accepted gospel.
And these are in the talking
points and the dog whistles
that Christian
nationalists can use
to communicate with each other.
- If we are gonna have one
nation under God, which we must,
we have to have one religion,
one nation under God and
one religion under God.
- Christian nationalists say,
"We really were founded
as a Christian nation
because, 'In God we trust,'
because, 'So help me God,'
because we have a,
'National Day of Prayer.'"
But actually, we've seen waves
of Christian nationalism
throughout American history.
In the 1950s, we had, "Under
God," added to the pledge,
"In God we trust,"
adopted as the motto,
a prayer room put
in the Capitol,
the, "National Day
of Prayer," imposed.
During the Civil w*r, we saw,
"In God we trust,"
added to our coins.
And all of these
artifacts then become
ways to justify future waves
of Christian nationalism.
- We have to think of
ourselves as pilgrims.
It was their children and
their children's children
that gave birth to America.
- When the pilgrims and
the puritans came over,
they established their
tiny little theocracies
and suffocated everybody's
religious freedom.
"You have to believe! You
have to act like this!"
They imposed theocratic law,
and we're essentially
failed societies.
And when the founders got
together and were looking at,
"How are we gonna create
the US constitution?,"
they looked back at
that and they said,
"We don't want any part of that.
That's the wrong
way to do things."
- The church is supposed
to direct the government.
The government is not
supposed to direct the church.
That is not how our founding
fathers intended it.
And I'm tired of this separation
of church and state junk
that's not in the Constitution.
It was in a stinking letter,
and it means nothing like
what they say it does.
- Amen.
- Whoo!
- If you look at
the Constitution,
the really unique contributions
are secular. The founders,
when they were writing the
Constitution in Philadelphia,
they didn't invoke the Bible,
they didn't turn to
religious principles.
And we know this because
we have the records.
It's very, very clear. It was
secular by design, by choice.
In fact, that actually pissed
people off at the time.
It begins, "We the People."
Our Constitution was
the first to do that.
It was the first to draw
power from the people
and not a deity.
No other country had
done that before.
It was the first in the
history of the world
to ban religious tests
for public office.
And it did so in language that
was very clear and emphatic.
It says, "No religious
tests shall ever be required
of any office or public trust
under the United States."
And even all of that was
not enough for the founders.
So that's just the
original document.
Then, later on, they
came along and said,
"We're actually gonna amend this
and we're gonna add
in more protections."
And so, then you get
the First Amendment.
"Congress shall make no law
respecting an
establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof."
And in that, you
have the founders
separating state and church
in an effort partly to
protect religious freedom.
They understood that there's
really, it's impossible
to have true religious freedom
without a secular government.
There is no freedom of religion
without a government that
is free from religion.
Is the United States
a Christian nation
in the sense that we have a
lot of Christians here? Sure.
Is the United States a
Christian nation in the sense
that Christianity influenced
our culture? Sure.
Was the United States,
our government,
our constitution, our laws,
founded on Christian or,
"Judeo-Christian," principles?
The answer to that is,
"No. Absolutely not."
Faith of our
fathers living still
In spite of dungeon
- Through different
eras of the US,
around times of social upheaval,
when we're trying to figure out,
"Who are we? What
are we about?,"
we see that Christian
nationalism is going to tell
religiously, politically
conservative Americans,
"We need to return
to these moral roots
to be the greatest country
in the world again.
And if we don't, we're
going to fall away."
- We pray for some young people
who are caught up in
the things of the world,
hooked on dr*gs, and
liquor and sin, immorality.
Help us today to get the message
of God's love so
clearly to them.
- In the 1970s, preachers
like, "Jerry Falwell,"
began arguing that the
answer to the problems
we're having in society, what
they consider to be problems,
could be found through politics.
- Thousands of ladies were
marching in Los Angeles
and New York for their rights,
"E-R-A."
All the rights any
dear lady needs
is the right to be
married to a Godly husband
who is under the
lordship of Jesus Christ.
- Jerry Falwell is
a pastor at, "Thomas
Road Baptist Church,"
a church in Virginia.
He's on the radio and
he's on television.
He's reaching and influencing
conservative Christians
across the country.
And so, he founds
the, "Moral Majority."
- It's
a political action committee
registered as such,
just like those of labor unions
or any other organization.
- And he ends up really
playing a critical role
in binding together
conservative Christianity
with this kind of newly
crystallized, political vision,
particularly around
the issue of abortion.
- Abortion is a moral issue.
It is a theological issue.
It is a human rights issue,
an issue that concerns the
human rights of unborn babies
who, by the hundreds of
thousands, are being m*rder*d.
- From the perspective
of the 21st century,
when we look at the religious
right as a political block,
it looks like they mobilized
around the issue of abortion
and overturning Roe v. Wade.
When you looked the
historical record, however,
when Roe v. Wade
first passed in 1973,
White evangelicals had
a mix of responses.
Basically, a lot of
the responses were,
"It's the law of the
land. Follow the law."
- A lot of people think
the movement was born
in response to Roe versus Wade
because movement leaders
want them to think that
and have promoted this idea.
But the reality is a
lot more complicated,
and frankly a lot uglier.
- What really catalyzed
the religious right
in the early to mid-1970s
was the so-called, "Right,"
of private Christian schools
to maintain racially
segregated institutions.
- Roe versus Wade became
a convenient,
chosen wedge issue.
But really, modern Christian
nationalism was born
out of the fight to
desegregate schools.
- Did
you like it at school today?
- Yeah.
What's difference was there
in going to the
Hoffman-Boston School?
- Well, school's bigger.
It's easy to get lost in.
Did you feel as if
you're going to like it there?
- Yeah.
- "Brown v. Board,"
legislating that schools
had to desegregate, was
passed in 1954 and many people
were up in arms.
- Regardless of what
they've decided,
we will have segregated schools.
- And are you going
back to school?
- No sir.
- And why did you
come out of school?
- Because I'm not
going to school
in.
- Uh-huh.
- And do you feel that the
majority agree with you
or with the, thee...
- The majority of people here
in Arkansas agree with me.
- Uh-huh. Well, what are you
gonna do for an education then?
- Well, St. Mary's
isn't integrated.
We can go there,
we can go to a private school.
- Many Christians, and
evangelicals in particular,
thought they could
keep religious schools
segregated and not have to
listen to the government.
- One particular example is
with, "Bob Jones University."
Bob Jones University was
started by, "Bob Jones, Senior."
He was this famous
preacher and evangelist,
and segregationist.
So Bob Jones University
was a segregated school,
didn't allow black
people at all.
Then you get a series of
court cases in the 1970s,
where the federal government
said, "No, you can't do that.
That's a violation of
constitutional rights.
It's a violation
of civil rights.
And if you maintain this
stance on racial segregation,
you will lose your
tax exempt status."
You lose your tax exempt status,
which means you have
to pay more money.
And it was the combination
of those two, race and money,
that got many church
leaders into politics.
- It's time for God's people
to come outta the closet,
outta the churches and change
America! We must do it!
- This is what pulled the
religious right together.
It was essentially saying,
"If the federal government
is going to tell us how
we can run our
private, essentially,
segregation academies,
we need to be afraid that
they could come after us in
any other sphere of life."
And so, it was
really around race
that we see the religious
right pull together,
- The new right leaders
were looking for an
issue to organize.
"Stop the tax on segregation!"
This wasn't gonna be
an effective rally and cry
for their new movement.
It was just so ugly.
So, they looked at things
like school prayer,
the women's movement, communism,
and the gay rights movement.
But abortion turned out to
be a great issue for them
because they were able to unite
disparate elements
of the rank and file.
- The Bible doesn't say
a word about abortion.
For me, as a Catholic sister,
I think it should not
be in the public square,
but it has been an
effective political
way of raising money and
controlling an electorate.
- How many of our
Christians have what I call,
"The goo goo syndrome,"
"Good government?"
They want everybody to vote. I
don't want everybody to vote.
Elections are not won
by a majority of people.
They never have been from
the beginning of our country,
and they are not now.
As a matter of fact,
our leverage in the elections,
quite candidly, goes up
as the voting
populace goes down.
- Behind the scenes, there were
people like, "Paul Weyrich",
conservative strategists,
who were looking to take the
kind of small government,
low tax, libertarian wing
of the Republican party
and juice it up with
conservative evangelicals
whose main concern
was social issues.
- I call again on Congress
to pass a constitutional
amendment,
restoring voluntary
prayer to our classrooms.
- It was a coalition,
it was coalition politics.
And you had your Chamber
of Commerce conservatives,
you had your neoconservatives,
you had people who were
focused on foreign policy,
the Reagan conservatives.
And then you had the Moral
Majority, Christian right.
And they were an important
and valuable part
of this coalition,
but they were not the dominant
part of the coalition.
- In terms of the abortion
issue, I am pro-life.
There's no question
that we ought to ban
partial birth abortions
in America today.
And no question...
- In retrospect, I think
part of the problem was,
there was this
culture of Republicans
who overpromised and
that underdelivered.
- By the early years
of the 21st century,
a lot of conservative
Christians had this sense that
the politicians weren't really
coming through for them.
They believed that
they were owed more.
- You work for us!
- And you see that in
the Tea Party movement,
this kind of insurgency.
The idea that Democrats
and Republicans
aren't all that different and
you can't really trust them.
- Thy kingdom come!
- You have to take
the power back.
- Thy will be done!
- And give the
power to the people
and then force your agenda.
- Evangelicals
said, "For 40 years,
we tried to get this
done the nice way,
and we're not gonna
do that any longer."
It's, "No more Mr. Nice guy.
It's now time for us to
really start to fight."
- Ladies and
gentlemen, thank you.
I am officially running
for President of
the United States
and we are going to make
our country great again.
- When I was a young
evangelical minister,
we used Donald Tr*mp
as a sermon illustration
for everything a
Christian should not be.
- We're going to
protect Christianity.
Two Corinthians right?
- Initially, among
churchgoing evangelicals,
Tr*mp's support was
not very strong.
Many Christians saw
Tr*mp as deeply flawed.
- You know, I'm a,
I'm a true believer.
Is everybody a true
believer in this room?
Christianity is under
tremendous siege.
But you know, the fact is
that there's nothing the
politicians can do to you
if you band together.
You have too much power.
But the Christians
don't use their power.
They don't need your,
they don't use your power.
And honestly, you have by
far, it's the strongest.
I mean, you talk about lobbies,
you have the
strongest lobby ever,
but I never hear about
a, "Christian lobby."
Thank you everybody.
- Before the 2016 election,
he invited evangelical
leaders to come to New York.
And I was invited, I declined,
but a lot of my
friends were there.
And the reports I got out
by text, you know, people
who were literally texting me
in real time from the meeting
saying, "This is our guy.
This is the guy who's
gonna get it done.
We may not like him, but it
looks like he's God's man."
- Donald Tr*mp today, came
and had a conversation.
Now, we don't agree
on everything.
But one thing he did,
he acknowledged the concerns
that evangelicals have
and he affirmed those concerns.
And he said, "It won't
happen when I'm president."
- When Tr*mp gave a list
of potential Supreme
Court nominees,
that was is reassuring to
many evangelical leaders
who are deeply concerned
about abortion.
They started to believe
that they would have influence
in a Tr*mp White House.
- Appointing a
Supreme Court justice
that would overturn Roe
v. Wade, do I have it?
- I will appoint judges
that will be pro-life.
- By the time I got
to the Republican National
Convention in Cleveland,
when Tr*mp would be declared
the official RNC
candidate for President,
my colleagues were
telling me that, "He was
ordained by God" to
lead the country.
That was a far cry
from the sermon
illustration we used to use,
but it spoke to how much
American evangelicals
had really abandoned
our core principles
and really made an exchange.
We were now all about
exercising political power.
- Friends, delegates,
and fellow Americans,
I humbly and gratefully
accept
your nomination for the
Presidency of the United States.
- In 2016, we looked
at the exit polls
and it came back that
81% of White evangelicals
pulled the lever
for Donald Tr*mp.
- That was a record.
That's more White
evangelicals than voted
for George W. Bush, who
was a White evangelical.
He could not have been elected
without the 81% of White
evangelical support.
He might not have
been elected at 80%.
He needed to squeeze
every last drop
out of the evangelical
base. And he did.
- Donald Tr*mp fits all the
marks of a televangelist,
right down to the crazy hair.
He's this larger than life ego
who promises you
the world, right?
"No one can fix it but me. I
can solve all the problems.
I'll drain the swamp,
I'll build the wall."
And he flies around
in a private jet.
He's got gilded toilets
and everything else.
He is a televangelist.
But instead of preaching gospel,
he's preaching
Christian nationalism.
He's preaching this,
"America First,"
"Make America Great
Again," gospel,
which a lot of people
were ready to hear.
- As a Christian, I
was surprised to see
so many Christians
just fall in line behind a man
who has had multiple affairs,
who will cheat and lie
and steal to get his way.
- He is the sort of incarnation
of the seven deadly sins.
He is about as,
you know, far from
Jesus as a person
could possibly be.
And yet, 81% of White
evangelicals voted for him.
You cannot forget
the, "White," part.
We are moving very rapidly
towards becoming the very first
nation state in the world
to be majority minorities.
And that, for a lot of people,
is a cause for celebration,
as it should be.
It's truly it extraordinary
when you think about it.
But for others, it scares
the sh*t out of them.
- Get the hell outta my country!
- The more that Americans
embrace Christian nationalism,
we find over and over that
they're much more likely to
hold r*cist values and beliefs.
In our survey
research, we find that
they're more uncomfortable
with racial integration
and more likely to
view racial minorities
as somehow less American.
When they see and believe
and think about who
the ideal American is,
they really do envision
a White America.
- I did not grow up a Christian,
but I became a
Christian in high school
in a White evangelical context.
And so, there's always been
these questions around race
and religion for me.
I am in White
evangelical spaces.
I'm in their seminaries,
I'm in their churches,
I'm in their denominations.
I am trying to
be part of moving the ball
forward on these issues,
only to turn around and
see those election results.
What that 81% number said was,
all of my concerns,
all of the issues that
are pertinent to me
because of our
racialized society,
those fell on deaf ears.
It really didn't matter
much when it came
to actually pulling the
lever to vote for someone.
It was completely
confounding to me
that other Christians
would proudly support a man
who plays on r*cist tropes,
that this man would
be their champion.
And it felt like a betrayal.
- Around 2018, 2019,
I'm sitting in church.
We'd have about a half hour time
between Sunday morning
worship and Sunday school.
And this sweetest lady,
the sweetest lady comes up
and she's like, "David, why
don't you like our President?"
And there are a lot of
things, but I sometimes,
you know, especially when
I was talking with somebody
who I knew wasn't that
engaged in politics.
I would just say
one or two things.
And I'd say, "You know,
I just wish our
Presidents lied less."
And she looked at me and she
said, "Donald Tr*mp lies?"
And, you know, at that
point, what do you say?
She was so immersed
in that cocoon,
she couldn't see the
man for who he was.
And, you know, all
kinds of people
have asked me to explain,
"MAGA Christianity."
And I've said to a lot of folks,
"If you were immersed in the
world they're immersed in,
you'd be wearing
the red hat also."
- I grew up as a Christian.
I attended a Christian
school all through childhood.
And it was fairly isolated
from popular culture.
I mean, I grew up only
listening to Christian music.
I thought that secular
music was sinful.
I'm still pretty ignorant of
a whole lotta popular culture.
Anything that went down
in the 1980s and 1990s,
there's a good chance
that I missed it.
It was possible to be
almost completely immersed
in this separate
Christian subculture.
Christian media is
a massive industry
that is almost completely
invisible to most Americans.
- "TBN," biggest
Christian TV network,
is one of the largest
station groups in the world,
in terms of number of stations.
"Salem," and, "K-LOVE,"
are among the largest radio
station groups in the world.
- If you are a good
churchgoing-Christian,
and you go twice a month, that
means you're maybe hearing
30 to 60 minutes
of Bible teaching,
from your local church, a month.
But you're probably
marinating in hours,
and hours and hours,
of Christian radio,
Christian television,
Christian websites and podcasts.
That's what's shaping a
lot of people's faith.
- Very little of it is
explicitly political,
but it shapes a community,
shapes a sense of identity.
And when it does turn political,
it is according to one playbook.
It is a conservative
Republican agenda.
- I'm, "Alex Clark,"
and this is, "Poplitics."
If your state decides to
make abortion illegal,
these mega corporations
want to help you k*ll
your baby anyways.
Yeah, this sounds like
a work trip from hell.
The expense report
would literally read,
"Work coffee, work
lunch, m*rder." So evil.
- To borrow a term
that you'll hear in
a lot of churches,
they're discipling Americans
to see the world in a particular
way. They're helping them
say, "Hey, this is what happened
and this is how you can
interpret what happened,
through this cultural framework
of Christian nationalism."
- The founding fathers
always believed that
Christians deserved
to be counselors to the
king. Not deserved...
They needed to be counselors
to the king.
- That's right.
- The people whispering
in the ear of the leaders,
counseling them, "Do
this and don't do that."
- Conservative talk often,
is better for the ratings
than Christian preaching.
So there's been an intermingling
of conservative talk
and Christian preaching
that for a certain
amount of the audience,
they can't tell the
difference anymore.
What is conservative
versus what is Christian.
- This idea of the separation
of church and state
still seems to come up,
even though it's not
in the Constitution,
it's not in the Bill of Rights.
- No, it's not in any of
those foundational documents.
- The majority of
conservative Christians
are not extreme
Christian nationalists,
but it makes great television.
- We are running straight at
Satan, both swords drawn...
- And as fringe voices that
tend to do best on media
because they say
outrageous things.
- The gender wage gap is a lie,
that a man can become
a woman is a lie,
that a baby in the womb is
just a clump of cells is a lie
that the rich don't
pay any taxes...
- Outrage is shaping millions
of American Christians
more than church,
and that's a problem.
- They're told over
and over and over again
that you're in danger and
you need to be more afraid.
The enemy is wokeism,
it's CRT, it's liberals.
It's all these things that
are dismantling America.
And it's a really
clear narrative,
"Join us and you'll have
purpose and here's your enemy."
- Here's what I've
been telling folks.
Pray for our enemies.
Okay? Pray for...
'Cause we're going
medieval on these people.
- The church is just
being outflanked
by better storytellers and there
are media figures out there
who know exactly
what they're doing.
They are lying and manipulating,
and stoking the fears
of these people,
using religious rhetoric
to make a lot of money.
- I want Jesus to come. The
reason why Jesus hadn't come
is 'cause people are
not giving the way
God told 'em to give.
- Mm.
- If people would
call this number
and put this victory
all over the world,
on every available voice,
every available outlet,
the Father, he would say,
"Jesus, go get 'em."
- Evangelical enterprises
raise billions of dollars.
We're not talking about millions
or even hundreds of
millions anymore,
but billions of dollars,
in mostly $10 to
$25 contributions.
Well, the way you get
those contributions is by
ginning up fear and anger.
When I was an activist
on the religious right,
I would meet with fundraisers.
I would hear from them,
"You've gotta give me
plenty of fear and anger."
I need to make your
people as mad as hell
and frightened to go
to sleep at night.
Because when
they're that afraid,
they're gonna send
you a lotta money.
If you want Armageddon,
then that's precisely
what will be delivered.
This is the fight.
I was kind of stricken
in conscience about that,
but over time, you
kind of learn to engage
in a sort of modus vivendi,
just a way of being.
We need the money
to fuel our work
and the only way to get it
is more fear and more anger.
- If you're not willing
to give up your nation
to a woke agenda that's
not left, it's liberal.
It's so far liberal,
it's out to destroy
the very fabric of this nation.
We're taking our nation back.
- Well now, it's out of control.
30 years into that,
40 years into it,
we have Christians who are
terrified of the external world.
- They want to
educate your children.
They want to take
your kids from you.
They don't want
you to do anything
that resembles Christianity
or stand up for what's right,
or stand up for what's truth.
And if you believe that and
you're gonna stand with me,
I need to hear it right now.
- Christian nationalism has
these two centered ideas
that are really in
contrast to one another,
and it's quite a conundrum.
One is, that the United
States is a Christian nation.
And the other is,
that Christianity
is always under as*ault
in the United States
in adherence to Christianity
are persecuted people.
And both of those are
proclaimed all of the time,
that it is Christian in
it's default religion.
And Christian people can't
get a break in this country
and are persecuted by the
authorities of this country.
- Undermining Christianity
is thee central
project of the left,
'cause it stands in their way.
- We may have to be in prison
and suffer a great persecution
as a result of our
commitment to biblical truth.
We are there, my friend,
That's not hyperbole.
I mean, the writing
is on the wall.
- They don't want the
gospel preached anymore.
In fact, the the governor
of New York said,
"We don't want
you kinda people."
- Wow.
- In other words, "We don't
want you pro-life people
in our state!"
- Right.
- Wow.
- There is a biblical
narrative of persecution
where throughout history,
if you are faithful to Jesus
Christ, you'll be persecuted.
So there's this
built-in instinct
in some American
Christianity to say,
"If you're really faithful,
you're gonna suffer
and struggle.
And so, that
validates your faith.
- Because the Bible ends
with the most exciting stuff
and it's about us
being persecuted.
We're almost excited
about being persecuted,
'cause it means we're getting
down to the good stuff.
- Christians in the West
are now experiencing
just a small taste of what
their brothers and sisters
living in restricted countries
have experienced for
years. And guess what?
It's likely to get worse.
- There are a lot of voices
who are telling Christians,
"You're one election away
from losing your
Christian school.
You're one election away
from losing your church.
You're one election away
from the total takeover of
your local public school
by far left ideologues."
- Who pays your
salary? Shame on you!
- So, you have
millions of people
who are in a state
of deep anguish,
where they feel like something
that they love is being not,
"Lost," is almost too
passive. "Destroyed..."
And, "Destroyed," is too mild.
"Maliciously destroyed,"
"Intentionally and
maliciously destroyed,"
something that they love,
an idea of what America is
that is deeply connected
to their faith.
But when you dive
in and you say,
"How have you lost
liberty?," for example,
really, there isn't
an answer to that
because people have
not lost liberty.
In fact, First Amendment
jurisprudence has never been
more robust in the whole
history of our country.
- We are stopping cold,
the att*cks
on Judeo-Christian values.
- Donald Tr*mp jumped
on that message of,
"America's falling apart,
and you need to fight if you
don't wanna lose your country."
- It wasn't as though Tr*mp
created Christian nationalism
or in any way brought
this onto the scene.
It had been with us
for decades before.
But what Tr*mp gave
it was a megaphone.
- In America, we don't worship
government, we worship God.
- Now, we were hearing this
rhetoric much more often
and much more loudly
than ever before.
- We don't wanna see God forced
out of the public square,
driven out of our schools or
pushed out of our civic life.
We wanna see prayers
before football games
if they want to give prayers.
- Donald Tr*mp
understood something
that was untapped out
there about resentments,
about us versus them, about
being part of the tribe.
And once you add that religious
element to all of this
and you think of Christianity
as the sword and the shield,
you can see how that
ramps everything up.
- There were people
in that rally,
and I looked the night
before. They were people
protesting very quietly
the taking down of the
statue of Robert E. Lee.
- I'm a national reporter.
My b*at is the intersection
of religion and politics.
When I cover certain events,
I have to be concerned
about whether or not
v*olence could occur there,
and that wasn't necessarily
true a few years ago.
Political v*olence
has just been a part
of the last few years,
covering Christian nationalism.
- We are in the midst of a
civil w*r between good and evil.
The good is all the
folks you see here.
- We pray that each of us...
- We even have
people arming up now.
I know plenty of pastors who go
into the pulpit now armed
with a semi-a*t*matic handgun.
My own spiritual
family sees v*olence
as perhaps an effective tool.
- One of the key questions
when we look at
Christian nationalism is,
"How does it condone v*olence
and political v*olence?"
The Bible is full of commands
to not just love one's
neighbor, to love one's enemies.
Christian nationalism
is going against
the core teachings
of Christianity.
- Do you think he looked
like this effeminate picture
that we always see
of him that...?
He didn't look like
that. He was a tough guy,
and that's the Jesus
that I wanna be like.
That's the side
that I want to be like.
- Over the last decades,
in these devotional books
that millions of Christian
men and women read,
we see the rise of a
more muscular Jesus.
You see a Jesus who
is a warrior Christ.
- I don't serve a dead
Jew in a Palestinian tomb.
I serve a risen savior
with power and glory
that victoriously came
up out of a grave.
And he took the keys
of death and hell.
And the Bible says, in
Genesis chapter 3 in verse 15,
that, "The serpent
would bruise his heel,
but the heel of that man
would bruise Satan's head!"
- Christian nationalists
will hold up some teachings
and neglect others.
When the Bible is brought in,
it's the book of Revelation.
- Revelation 19
shows us a Jesus
you can't control.
This is not gentle
Jesus, meek and mild.
This is giant Jesus,
mighty and riled.
- The Bible does
depict a warrior Jesus,
just with a very
different kind of warfare.
The warfare takes
place spiritually
through the means of the gospel,
not through physical v*olence.
In the New Testament,
Jesus repudiated that
when his own disciple,
Peter, pulled out the sword
to defend him from
being arrested.
And Jesus said, "Put
away your sword.
Those who live by the sword
will perish by the sword."
But there are people
who will translate
spiritual warfare categories
into literal political v*olence.
- Get the
outta the way, bro!
What the?
- You want some trouble?
- There is a righteous use
of force in a fallen world,
a righteous use of
weaponry in a fallen world.
- Yes, Jesus will bring peace,
but only after he
slays his enemies.
The enemy is ruthless.
And so, to protect the church,
to protect God's people,
you need to engage in v*olence.
- One of the biggest fallacies
about religion, and especially
Christianity in particular,
is that somehow it's
gonna make you meek
and docile and understanding,
when as a matter of fact, we
can look throughout history,
whether we're talking
about American history,
or we're talking about Roman
history or anything else,
that Christianity
has also always been
associated with v*olence.
It's not just Islam,
it's Christianity too.
You don't get wars of religion
without people believing
that the cross is
gonna go before them
and fight their battles.
- Of all symbols they
could have chosen,
the Ku Klux Klan chose
the cross of Christianity,
but they perverted it
and used that cross
as a symbol of terror.
For them,
to be Christian is to
believe that the society
is quote unquote,
"For the White man."
Other people are supposed
to be subordinate,
not just as a
matter of politics,
but as a matter of religion.
And that's where Christian
nationalism goes off the rail
is because what it tends
to suggest most often
is that God
ordains injustice.
- Tr*mp is going in and trying
to take America by the hand
and say, "We can
be great again."
I'm coming to you as a
prophet, as a man of God,
and I'm telling you, it's time
to pray for the President.
- Yes.
- Amen.
- But here's what the Holy
Spirit said to me last night,
and here's what he said for
me to tell you. Oh my God.
There's gonna be an attempt
to take him out of power.
Let's stand and pray right now.
Come on, help me out right now.
I want you to lift your
voice. Everybody help me pray.
Keep him Holy Spirit!
- Christian support for Tr*mp
had an extra degree
of fanaticism to it
that much of the mainstream
media just missed completely.
And that fanaticism was
supplied by prophecy.
- Somebody had to do
it. I am the chosen one.
- I said, "Mr. President, I
know there are people that say,
you said you were
the chosen one."
And... And, I said, "You were."
- I think God calls all of us
to fill different roles
at different times.
And I think that he wanted
Donald Tr*mp to become president
and that's why he's there.
- A lot of it was
centered around a feeling
that they were participating
in this tremendous move of God
to save the United
States of America
through this unlikely hero.
- Go, Tr*mp!
- Somebody who's gonna
deliver God's people,
even if he wasn't necessarily
a believer himself,
a, "Cyrus," figure,
One evangelical leader,
"Lance Wallnau," believes Tr*mp
is like the Persian
king, "Cyrus the Great."
According to the Bible, Cyrus
ruled over ancient Babylon
and made a decree that the
Jewish temple should be rebuilt.
- Tr*mp has the,
"Cyrus anointing,"
to navigate in chaos.
- They speak of Donald
Tr*mp as a new Messiah.
They speak of him
as a Godly person
who is directly
communicating with God.
- God spoke to me.
Alright, what's
gonna happen in 2020?
I think President Tr*mp is
going to be reelected handily.
- We thank you for this
nation that was born in 1776.
We pray in 2020 it
would be born again.
- By 2020, the election is
Donald Tr*mp's divine destiny.
- Here is the long
and winding road to 270.
In the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts,
Joe Biden, the projected
winner tonight.
In the state of Maryland,
Joe Biden, the predicted
winner tonight.
- This is a fraud on
the American public.
This is an embarrassment
to our country.
We were getting ready
to win this election.
Frankly, we did
win this election.
- The president came out,
claimed he won something
that he has not won yet.
And neither has Joe
Biden, to be clear,
because we are still
counting ballots.
And the President also
threatened legal action,
even though there's
nothing to challenge yet,
because ballots are
still being counted.
- If you count the legal
votes, I easily win.
- The Fox News Decision
Desk can now project
that former Vice
President, Joe Biden,
will win Pennsylvania
and Nevada.
- Donald Tr*mp will be
denied a second term.
- Facts don't matter.
What you see with your
own eyes doesn't matter.
"I have access to a
secret source of knowledge
that tells me, this
election was stolen."
- If you believe
that Donald Tr*mp
was anointed by God to be
president, if you believe
that America was founded
as a Christian nation
and that we need to get back
to those Godly principles,
if you believe those things,
then how could the election
not have been stolen?
- The media said,
"Joe Biden's president."
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
- If you viewed Donald
Tr*mp as, "Cyrus,"
the pagan king that God had
anointed to save his people,
then you were looking for
what was gonna happen next
that would make
it all make sense.
- It was billed, "The
Million MAGA March."
Today, thousands of
President Tr*mp's supporters
gathered in the
nation's capitol,
many of them refusing to
accept that President-elect,
Joe Biden, won the election.
- I believe it's a blessing.
God's got his hand
in all of this.
Donald Tr*mp, because
he got so many votes
and they had to backfill,
now we all know it
was, it was fraud.
Donald Tr*mp will be our
president for four more years.
- The whole idea
that the election was stolen,
became just widely
accepted among Christians.
- Whoo!
I hear an army of angels
coming from heaven
to help our beautiful president
win this battle of
good versus evil.
- You started to
hear rhetoric about
spiritual warfare.
- One nation under God.
- This is an epic battle
of good versus evil.
- God raised up an army.
- Yeah!
- And I'm telling you right
now, with all of my soul,
with all my heart, I've
not lost one moment's sleep
over what's gonna
happen on the sixth!
I declare unto you that God
Almighty is about to get glory!
He's about to show up! He's
about to step off his throne!
He's about to do
something in this nation
that's gonna be so glorious!
- And so, you basically,
had a group of
people who believed
that God had called
them to Washington DC
and to storm the Capitol.
- "For Thine is the
Kingdom, and the Power,
and the Glory forever. Amen!"
- On January 5th, there
was a religious rally,
before the event on January
6th, what they call,
"Jericho Marches."
- We know this battle
belongs to you, Lord.
And I thank you for every
single one of these warriors
who have come out today.
- The idea to bring
Christian people together
to march around the capitol,
in imagery that's
supposed to conjure up
the nation of Israel, marching
around the walls of Jericho.
- Go out to face them tomorrow.
Amen.
- And if you know that
story, it's the story
where the walls of Jericho
come crumbling down.
Still, these demonstrators
keep believing that
some revelation
could possibly change
the election outcome,
and they insist their concerns
and hopes shouldn't be
ignored or belittled.
- The church is not a bear
that they should have poked.
- They went to march
around the US Capitol
in order to send the
message that the structure
of our government would
come collapsing down
and would reinstate
Donald Tr*mp as President.
- Come to the big DC marches
on the 5th and 6th of January.
I'll see you there. God bless.
- This was not a secret.
They were advertising it.
- People didn't just show up.
They went to churches
and got on buses
and drove across the country
to be at these rallies
on January 5th.
- We thank you Lord.
You are gonna bring the exposure
that needs to take place
for all of us that have
friends and family members
that think we're crazy.
- When you were
primed to believe
that you've been under
siege by secular society,
quote unquote for
quite some time.
Then it's not a
huge leap to say,
"Well this is the apocalypse,
this is the end times,
and we have to do
whatever we can
to stop that from occurring."
- This struggle God has
put us in to test us
and God is on our side,
and incredible things
are coming!
- This is nothing less
than an epic struggle
between the Godly
and the Godless,
between good and evil.
And we will win this fight,
or America would step off into
a thousand years of darkness.
- I'm telling you,
Jesus is the lamb
that takes away the
sin of the world.
But he is not just a lamb!
He is the lion of
the tribe of Judah!
And he's about to roar again
in the United States of America!
We're gonna take
our nation back!
- Christian nationalism provided
the permission structure
to att*ck the b*ating heart
of American democracy.
- So in graduate school I,
I was an American
historian by training,
American religious historian,
but I had an outside field,
20th century Germany,
with a focus on
the German Christian movement.
I had a fascination with,
"How could Christians
participate in a movement
like the Third Reich?
And how could they do so
not kind of neglecting
their Christianity,
or at least not to their
mind, but as Christians,
twisting their
Christianity in such a way
that it was compatible
with Nazism.
- When Adolf h*tler ascended
to the chancellorship,
he didn't seize power.
It was given to him by a
very Christian electorate
who declared him in 1933 to be,
"A gift and miracle from God."
And I remember quite well,
when I was being
trained as a minister,
we were told never
prepare a sermon without
consulting the Dictionary
of New Testament Theology
edited by, "Gerhard Kittel,"
a good German evangelical
Bible scholar.
Nobody ever told me
that Gerhard Kittel
was Adolf h*tler's
resident theologian
that gave him the theological
justification for genocide.
Why didn't we ever know
that one of the theologians
we consulted most often
justified genocide?
Boy...
That was an eye-opener.
- One doesn't derive one's
values from scripture.
One inserts one's
values into scripture.
- Let us pray.
- Let us pray.
Lord, let your
plans stand forever,
and may your purpose for
this nation stand strong.
- Almighty God,
have compassion on us
with your unfailing love,
as our lawmakers
prepare to formally
certify the votes.
- Guide our legislators
with your wisdom and truth.
- 1776!
- People thought that they
were there to defend God,
to defend their faith,
and to defend democracy
while they were trying
to overturn our democracy.
- You had crosses,
you had Bible verses,
pictures of Jesus.
- We love Jesus.
We're here storming the
gates of the government.
- They're praying in the
name of Jesus Christ.
They were using religion
as a way to justify
overturning democracy.
- One nation under God...
- Christian nationalism
uses Christianity as
a means to an end,
that end being some form
of authoritarianism.
If there's a religious
basis for one's authority,
one is able to say,
"You're not just wrong,
you're on the
wrong side of God."
- The body of Christ is the one
that's gonna make
America great again.
- One of the things I
am afraid of is that
I see the erosion of democratic
norms and institutions.
I see a shocking
lack of commitment
to American democracy among
many American Christians.
And it's not clear to
me where that will stop.
- Jesus Christ! We spoke again!
- This thr*at of what I
no longer even pretend
is evangelicalism,
this White,
religious nationalism
may present one of the
greatest dangers ever
to our democratic experiment.
It is an ugly exercise
to try to imagine
what America might do
as a fascist state.
- Amen!
- After January 6th,
there was a brief moment
where Christian nationalism
came into the limelight.
- The problem
isn't Christianity,
one of the world's
great religions. No!
This particular
brand of Christianity
that has linked up
with the Tr*mp movement
is a different kind of thing,
"Christian nationalism."
- It seemed like the
country was gonna notice
and wake up to this thr*at,
and that didn't happen.
- Don't believe what
you see on the press.
It was, there's, it was
a, it was over a million
wonderful, wonderful,
wonderful, wonderful people
who were singing worship
songs and loving Jesus.
They didn't break into anything.
- They let 'em in.
- They let 'em in.
- Not only did they let them in,
it's paid for by tax dollars.
- That's our problem.
- Yeah, they were Americans
and they were innocent.
- Something that makes
me fear for the future
is that we see Americans
reevaluating what
happened on January 6th.
- You know, if you didn't
know the TV footage
was a video from
January the sixth,
you would actually think it
was a normal tourist visit.
- They wandered freely
through the Capitol
like it was their
building or something.
They didn't have g*ns,
but a lot of 'em had
extremely dangerous ideas.
They talked about
the Constitution
and something called,
"Their rights."
- So my colleague,
"Samuel Perry,"
gathered data in
February of 2021.
And found that three
quarters of ambassadors
and accommodators of
Christian nationalism said,
"Those that engaged in the
riot should be prosecuted."
When he asked the same
question, six months later,
that number had
dropped to around 50%.
And so, as time
continues to move on,
are we gonna
continue to see them
reevaluate the
insurrection and move from,
"This was a crime,"
to, "Well maybe,
this was a necessary evil,"
to possibly moving towards,
"Well, this was necessary,
and it was actually good that
we att*cked the capitol."
I think that's a
real possibility
and something that should
concern every American,
but especially
American Christians.
- Now, what we're seeing
is Christian nationalists
more emboldened
and more entrenched
in their disinformation
and their ideology.
- Without the Bible,
there is no modernity.
Without the Bible,
there is no America.
Our biblical inheritance is
at the center of our politics.
It is the question of the age.
- Welcome back.
We are following the historic
ruling from the Supreme Court.
The conservative
majority has overturned
the landmark Roe
versus Wade ruling.
- For the first time
since 1973, abortion is no
longer a nationwide right.
- You have now freed
us from the shackles
of Roe versus Wade.
We thank and we praise you.
- Yes. It's going to be hard.
I know, as a
working mom of four,
it's not easy working
and being a mother.
And I'm married, right?
I can only imagine if
I were a single mother.
It's hard work, but you
can do it. And guess what?
The pro-life movement
stands with you
every single step of the way.
- In a world
without Roe v. Wade,
American Evangelicals will face
the greatest ethical
crisis we have ever faced,
which is...
Will we take all the hundreds
of millions of dollars raised
to end abortion? Will we
now take that same amount
of resources and marshall them
to help women who are facing
unwelcome pregnancies?
The children that
are born to them?
Most of the people I knew
in the pro-life movement
were quite sincere in
their belief system,
but none of us had played out
the unintended consequences.
- I will say that my
attitude about abortion was,
you know, and I'm
a Catholic sister.
It wasn't my issue.
So it was like, "Okay,
I oppose abortion."
But then, when I was
practicing law in Oakland,
I got appointed by the court
to represent a 13-year-old
who had been r*ped by her
uncle and was pregnant.
And so, my responsibility
as her lawyer
was to walk with her and
help her make choices.
That forever shifted my approach
because what I realized
is that it's not
this antiseptic
removed decision.
They're human beings
struggling, struggling. So...
I became much more
nuanced about the reality.
- Roe v. Wade has got to go!
- We did it!
- I've been working and praying
for the past five
years for this day.
And we still have
a ton of work to do
to get all the states
to ban abortion,
but this is a huge step.
- I think this is a really
good time for Christians
to engage in really
careful reassessment,
to go back to the scriptures.
And to read those with
fresh eyes and see
what God's teachings are,
to look at the life of Christ.
And to look at what
Jesus calls us to do
and who Jesus calls us to be.
And then, to take a look
at your political views.
- The United States
as a political entity,
its future is uncertain.
We don't know what might happen.
We hope for the best.
- The United States of
America is a people movement,
and we will be
however the people of
this country choose to be.
That's what we're
gonna be as a nation.
- I make a very
sharp distinction
between patriotism
and nationalism.
Nationalism is something
that is usually idolatrous
and self exalting.
Patriotism, I
think, is gratitude
for being in a country as
magnificent as this one.
- This was an
accident of history.
We are fundamentally a
nation of immigrants,
so we came from
all over the place,
speaking different languages,
worshiping different gods.
However you think
about this country,
the one thing that
cannot be denied
is that at the heart of it
is the idea of pluralism.
"E Pluribus Unum." That's the
whole shebang right there.
"Out of many, one."
The biggest sin, if you will,
of Christian nationalism,
is that it sees pluralism as
a weakness and not what it is,
the foundation of what
it means to be American.
- This is what puzzles me.
Christian nationalists
treating multiculturalism
as a thr*at to America,
even though that is America.
- There's a version of
American nationalism.
It's trying to camouflage
itself as, "Christianity."
And it's doing a
whole lot of damage,
not just to our democracy,
but to the reputation
of our faith.
- Faith ought not to be
reduced to an ideology,
certainly not an ology
of hate or exclusion.
And we need to work together
and really fight for a
better life for everybody.
- Christianity at its best,
committed to love and
truth and justice,
has and always will be a
powerful, powerful force.
In the face of sickness, the
church created hospitals.
In the face of people
needing to be educated,
the church created universities.
In the face of Jim Crow
and racism to church,
marched from churches
into the street,
across bridges, went to jail
and forced non-violent change.
Everywhere you look, when the
church has been at its best,
it protects people
regardless of their race,
their creed, or their sexuality.
Jesus' last sermon,
he was talking about,
"I'm gonna judge the
nations by these things.
Not gonna judge you
by your skyscrapers.
Not gonna judge you
by your tax cuts.
Not gonna judge you
by your m*llitary.
When people were hungry,
did you feed 'em?
When people were sick,
did you care for them?
When people were immigrants,
did you welcome them?
When people were at their least,
did you as a nation
lift them up?"
If we do this right,
what a country we will be.
God & Country (2024)
Moderator: Maskath3