In our last email, we invited you to join our Learning Together reading and resource series on Christian nationalism. We started by pointing you to a couple controversial titles which defend the heresy of Christian nationalism, in order for you to have a chance to read some primary source accounts of the thinking behind this dangerous ideology. Now we move to a comprehensive critique that, at the same time, introduces the enormously consequential element of race.

Religion scholar and former Christian nationalism insider Bradley Onishi maps the origins of White Christian nationalism and traces its offshoots in Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism–And What Comes Next. Combining his experiences in conservative youth groups and prayer meetings of the 1990s with an immersive look at the steady blending of White grievance politics with evangelicalism, Onishi crafts an engrossing account of the years-long campaign of White Christian nationalism that led to the January 6th insurrection.

As you explore Dr. Onishi’s book, consider these questions and prompts:

• How did the rise of what Onishi calls the “New Religious Right”, between 1960 and 2015, give birth to violent White Christian nationalism during the Trump presidency and beyond?

• Onishi describes how he was once part of the United State’s most conservative religious communities. What propelled his community and others like it to ignite a cold civil war?

• List Onishi’s key critiques. Which ones do you agree or disagree with and why? What factors contribute to your own critique?

Bradley Onishi, PhD, is Faculty in Religion and Philosophy at the University of San Francisco. A TEDx speaker, he has written for the New York Times, Religion & Politics, The LA Review of Books, and The Conversation US, among other outlets. He has appeared on NPR-affiliate programs and nationally ranked podcasts. Brad was a pastor at a California megachurch in Yorba Linda (birthplace of Richard Nixon!) before attending Oxford University, L’institut catholique de Paris, and the University of California Santa Barbara.

Check out Dr. Onishi’s popular podcast – Straight White American Jesus

Straight White American Jesus (SWAJ) is a podcast on religion and politics with a focus on the Religious Right. Launched in 2018, both of the show’s hosts, Daniel Miller and Bradley Onishi, are ex-evangelical ministers who are now scholars of religion. SWAJ is the only self-produced and self-funded podcast to appear regularly in the top 50 of Apple’s Politics charts. We regularly compete with shows produced by national outlets such as Fox News, NYT, NPR, and Slate.

The Dangers of Christian Nationalism

From July to October 2019, the BJC Podcast presented a 10-episode series on the dangers of Christian nationalism. Hosted by BJC Executive Director Amanda Tyler, these episodes are available for a deeper dive into the topic, and we have provided discussion guides for those interested in using these in a group setting.

Confronting Christian Nationalism

This podcast is a limited series about the troubling rise of Christian Nationalism in America and is hosted by Vote Common Good.

Schenck Talks Bonhoeffer

These four podcast episodes from TDBI’s podcast address Christian nationalism from the perspective of three scholars in the field.

Professor Robert Ericksen is the author of several books on the German Church Struggle, including Theologians Under Hitler and Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust. In this special extended two-part conversation, Ericksen explains how and why Christians in the Nazi era embraced Hitler’s Third Reich dictatorship and genocide against Jews, Roma, “homosexuals,” and general political dissidents. Professor Ericksen broadens the lens used to examine this narrow time frame by bringing into context the present moment just enough to warn us of the ominous parallels between what happened in post-Weimar Germany and what we are experiencing in contemporary America.

TDBI Senior Fellow Tobias Cremer specializes in religious nationalism, particularly western forms that include white supremacy, chauvinism, and Christian language, symbols, and monikers. He is working with colleagues at Oxford, Pembroke College, his alma mater, Cambridge, and numerous other institutions to address these issues. In this podcast conversation, Dr. Cremer talks about his professional and personal pursuit of this violent movement and how it has manifested itself in the United States and beyond.

David French is a political commentator, former attorney who has argued religious liberty cases, and is a Christian conservative dissenter. In this podcast conversation, French discusses the crisis of Christian Nationalism.