Does America have a White Christian Problem?

The rise of white Christian Nationalism and the Christian left

On Sunday, one of the speakers at the Iowans for Reproductive Freedom Rally in Des Moines shouted something like, “America has to admit it has a white Christian problem!”

That’s casting a pretty wide net.

Given the context of the rally, it would seem that her ire could be more specifically directed at the Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn Roe vs. Wade while recognizing that those Justices who voted against overturning it also identify as Christian. There is also plenty of ire to be directed at many Republicans in Congress who say they are Christians and in statehouses across the nation. 

But there is a Christian left, and I imagine there was a goodly number at the rally that day.

Given that most if not all of us know many right-wing Christians, sometimes it feels that theirs is a grassroots movement, one that is growing increasingly nationalistic. Katherine Stewart argues it isn’t a grassroots movement in a recent New York Times piece on Christian Nationalists. 

“Americans who stand outside the movement have consistently underestimated its radicalism. But this movement has been explicitly anti-democratic and anti-American for a long time.

It is also a mistake to imagine that Christian nationalism is a social movement arising from the grassroots and aiming to satisfy the real needs of its base. It isn’t. This is a leader-driven movement. The leaders set the agenda, and their main goals are power and access to public money. They aren’t serving the interests of their base; they are exploiting their base as a means of exploiting the rest of us.”

Christian nationalism isn’t a route to the future. Its purpose is to hollow out democracy until nothing is left but a thin cover for rule by a supposedly right-thinking elite, bubble-wrapped in sanctimony and insulated from any real democratic check on its power.

America has a white Christian nationalism problem. 

But, still, I understand and appreciate the speaker’s sentiments. The Christian left is nearly invisible and seemingly powerless. All across America, right-wing preachers and their followers act like they practice the only true Christian faith when it bears little resemblance to what I learned in Sunday School as a kid. And much of the media buys into the idea. And through this, they build power.

Who are the Christian leaders on the left?

Nationally, Rev. Dr. William Barber and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Co-Chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign: a National Call for Moral Revival, and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia come to mind. But how about here in Iowa? Name one whose works are widely known, shares their faith with a far-reaching constituency, and is regularly featured in the media. I suspect you can’t.

Right-wing Christianity fills the void, and increasingly, it is white Christian Nationalism.

I have been thinking about this for a long time. I wrote the following in 2017 shortly after Trump was elected. An abbreviated version appeared in the Kansas City Star on February 1 of that year. It addresses some of the issues and is still relevant, although dated.

A Battle for the Soul of America

Newspaper tucked under my arm, I entered my favorite cafe in one of our neighboring towns. A light crowd for lunch, I thought, as the waitress led me to my regular booth. I was ready for lunch and some quiet time alone with my newspaper. The waitress put her finger to her lips as she put my menu down on the table and nodded her head toward another table. I looked toward where she was indicating. Two middle-aged women were sitting across the table from each other, holding hands, heads bowed. Saying grace, I thought. Not uncommon around here. I nodded to the waitress that I knew to be quiet, and as I sat down, I realized one of the women was my friend. She owned a shop in town, and her husband had an executive position at a local company. Both are evangelical Republican conservatives well respected in the community. 

As I pondered my order, I realized I could hear the women's earnest prayers. While I tried not to listen, it was impossible not to. When I heard what they were praying for, I was stunned. They weren't saying grace; they weren't praying for good health, the safety of the high school basketball players who had a game that night, or for world peace. They were praying for money—cold, hard, cash.

Thinking back to this moment, I believe that Democrats have what may seem to be an unlikely path to gaining influence in predominantly Christian rural America. Through our churches.

I’ll admit to being a theologically-challenged lapsed Lutheran, but hearing my friend praying for money chilled me deep down to my Sunday school-educated bones. The woman I saw in the restaurant and many of my friends and family I love and respect practice what they call the prosperity gospel, where the belief is that God will bestow financial blessings on the faithful. It’s seen that through faith, prayer, positive thought, and donations to Christian causes, God will honor them with prosperity. This gospel is very common in red-state America, partly because these churches play an important role in providing spiritual and social infrastructure. And, for those of us who live paycheck to paycheck and wish for a better life for ourselves and our kids, embracing a spiritual path that offers sound financial advice and great expectations for the future is a hell of a lot better than putting false hopes in a winning lottery ticket or sitting at the end of the bar crying in our beer.

Democrats may have underestimated the prosperity gospel's role in delivering the rural vote to Donald Trump during the election. Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, with Great Faith Ministries in Detroit, offered a prayer during the inauguration ceremony. Bishop Jackson is a multimillionaire and preaches that Trump’s wealth shows he is “blessed by God.” Paula White, who is known as a leading prosperity gospel minister, is a spiritual advisor to Trump.

That praying for money bugs me is irrelevant. What is relevant is that many pastors and parishioners from the Christian left I speak with and read about find it equally troublesome or more so. Perhaps it’s time for the Democratic party to pay more attention to their perspectives if they want to thrive in rural America.

After a middle school event, I asked a friend what he thought about the prosperity gospel and the angry message of the Christian right. A better Lutheran than I ever was or ever will be, his answer was immediate and sharp, “It’s not biblical. It’s as if they’ve never even read the beatitudes. And you can make a lot of money off of rage.” Presuming logically, if Trump is “blessed by God” as indicated by his riches, where does that leave the rest of us? Not blessed? Damned for not being rich? For not praying for money? What about helping the poor, the downtrodden, and the meek? Feeding the hungry, healing the sick? The rest of the beatitudes? That’s been part of the gospel of Christianity for two millennia, and is what I was taught growing up in rural Iowa. Sure, I suspect some successful prosperity gospel practitioners do all this good, sacred work and more. Others seem much more interested in their McMansions, cruises to the Bahamas, and how high and wide they can pile their money.

The beatitudes say the meek will inherit the earth, even though it seems the rich have planted their plump bottoms on most of its real estate for now. And, if it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, Mr. Trump and his entourage will have a damn tight squeeze at the pearly gates. There’s going to be a lot of gut-sucking going on.

As unsettling as the prosperity gospel is, it isn’t as concerning to me as other aspects of the Christian right as it expresses itself in politics. I’ve been covering the Iowa caucuses since the 2007 run-up to the 2008 event through this year and have interviewed most of the presidential candidates and attended hundreds of campaign events. 

Ted Cruz won Iowa in 2016, and his small-town events were like sermons, where he preached that Godly men like him would save America from the evils of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and ISIS. Events by Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Donald Trump, and Ben Carson shared the same themes. Illegal immigrants were portrayed as our enemies at best and demonized at worst. The fact that there are more than 60 million refugees fleeing violence in the world today--the largest number since World War II--isn’t a concern for these conservative Christian leaders.

One of the more heartless lines at a forum belonged to Pastor Huckabee. Angrily, Huckabee showed his purported “Christian” nature when he exclaimed to the worked-up audience in Des Moines, “What do we do to stem the tide of people who are rushing over (the border) because they’ve heard that there is a bowl of food just across the border….”

The irony here is palpable. Most pastors I know would say, “feed them, offer them comfort and shelter.” I’ve also never thought I would see a Pastor eager for war--Huckabee sure seems to be. Ted Cruz is nearly giddy when he thinks he might be able to nudge the Middle East into war--he and his kindred souls would delight if their “end times” rhetoric came true.

Like my friend said, there is a lot of money to be made off anger. Votes too.

While these days seem bleak to progressives, with what I’ve learned from my friends on the Christian left, there are real opportunities to challenge the message of the Christian right, not only in terms of policy, but in their fundamental worldview. The challenge can come from various fronts, but perhaps the most powerful message to rural America could come from the Christian left. My lefty pastor friends are varyingly outraged, dismayed, and saddened that the right has hijacked the faith they love with messages they don’t believe. They don’t see the prosperity gospel as Biblical, and the hate and anger routinely expressed by conservative political leaders is as far away from the compassion and love embedded in the message of Jesus as the earth is to the moon. Maybe Saturn. 

And the Biblical mandate to be stewards of the earth? Who cares as long as the end-times are nigh--”drill baby, drill!”  One pastor friend can’t understand the wanton disregard for what he sees as “God’s creation.” Another is puzzled by the kindness and compassion that right-winged members of his congregation can show their neighbors while raging at those seeking asylum from abroad. To him, when the Christian right considers matters beyond our borders, “Jesus is writ small.”

Another pastor on the left once told me that American Christians are the most privileged people in the history of the planet, but you would have a hard time knowing that just by listening to them. The alleged “war on Christmas” is particularly troubling for him. He sees the war as non-existent and is merely the recurring yearly centerpiece where Christians get to play the “victim.” These same people also see themselves as the “victims” of those who seek equal opportunity, rights, and maybe a piece of the prosperity pie. 

The Democratic Party needs to grow its constituency. That growth could come from those who believe in the Jesus-centric message of the Christian left. Sure, there are some challenges, like BIG ones. The Christian right has a near-stranglehold on the mega-churches and Christian radio and television. Yet, Christian leadership has come from the left before--look at the role Dr. Martin Luther King and other religious leaders played in the Civil Rights movement. And while Democrats and Pope Francis won’t agree on everything, much of his message is progressive.

Most critical is that the Christian left needs to share their message not with the leadership of the Christian Right but with their constituency. Let rank and file Christians look at the distinctly different messages of the Christian left and Christian right side by side and decide which is the Biblical worldview they want to follow.

A friend who is the former principal at a local Christian grade school told me that when he was raised in a small-town Iowa, he was taught that God is a Republican and that if you love God, you will vote Republican. He said that it was only when he was in his 20s that he realized the world was more complex.

While Republicans may teach their children God is a Republican, many Democrats in my neck of the woods teach their children that Jesus was a Democrat. If the Democratic party engages the Christian left such that their message is shared widely among the Christian right who populate pews each week, maybe some of the powerful Sunday school lessons I remember so well will come back to them. 

This may be the ultimate irony--that the original lessons of Christianity may save the left, and cruel avarice in the name of Christianity doom the right.

It will be a struggle for the soul of America. And Christianity.