The Flag and the Cross

Summary: A brief look at the sociology and history of Christian Nationalism in regard to how it relates to democracy.

Perry and Whitehead's Taking America Back for God was the first book I read that was explicitly about Christian Nationalism. Samuel Perry is back with Philip Gorski with a short book that updates and takes a different approach to look at Christian Nationalism. While I think Taking America Back for God is a more comprehensive sociological look at CN, The Flag and the Cross, does a better job of giving historical context to Christian Nationalism.

This is a brief book, with only four chapters covering bout 130 pages of the main content (less than five hours of audio). The book ends with a more practical chapter on avoiding a future January 6th type of event and is more practical. But just as important are the three chapters that give context. The first chapter is about why this is “our nation, not theirs”. And then the third chapter is about how “Freedom, Violence, Order” is central to how Christian Nationalism thinks politically.

But I think my favorite was the second chapter on the history of Christian Nationalism's influences. This chapter has two important frames for the telling of that history. One, it focuses on the early history of the US as contextual within the European centuries-long conflict, of which the American Revolution was one small part. And second, it reminds the reader that the story of Christian Nationalism today has to account for the switch from the civil religion impulse of the mainline liberal Christian tradition to the conservative Evangelical tradition. (This is not unlike the political party realignment that was happening concurrently.) The first part of the framing reminds us that we are not the central player at all points in time in global history. The second part is a reminder to those who are currently opposing Christian Nationalism from a more progressive political position that it was, in fact, the progressives or earlier generations that were more likely historically to align with Christian National rhetoric today.

I finished this audiobook in a single day of chores and exercise. I am not new to the conversation on Christian Nationalism or how Christians use and abuse history for their own purposes. But as brief as this book was, there are essential refinements from the earlier Taking America Back for God and more nuanced views of what Christian Nationalism is. There is a helpful podcast with Paul Miller interviewing Samuel Perry on the Faith Angle Podcast. Miller is writing a critique of Christian Nationalism from a conservative political and theological perspective and as a political scientist. He is trying to frame his discussion of Christian Nationalism in ways that at least some people that Perry and Gorski will recognize themselves and agree with Miller's framing. While I think a legitimate critique of Perry's sociological work is that he is writing a descriptive sociological account that is more interested in raising awareness of the problem of Christian Nationalism and less interested in getting Christian Nationalists to self-identify with the framing. Part of this is that sociology and political science are different fields, as sociologists Gorski and Perry work in descriptive categories and tendencies toward belief and action. While Miller is working as a political scientist that wants to deal with specific ideas and individuals. These two things fit together and sharpen one another (as do bringing in historians like Randall Balmer (Bad Faith) or Anthea Butler (White Evangelical Racism) among many others.

There has also been a shift in the rhetoric around Christian Nationalism. With Marjorie Taylor Green, Al Mohler, and the Family Research Council, among many others embracing the term Christian Nationalism as an accurate, descriptive term, there is less discussion about whether this is a real category. But I also think that Miller's definition, which people like William Wolfe have said accurately describes how they see themselves, matters to limiting what is meant by the term. Perry and Whitehead, and Gorski are all talking about the racial component of Christian Nationalism, and six months ago, the common complaint was that using Christian Nationalist was just a way to say “racist” with different words. But Miller's shift of using “Anglo-Protestantism” as part of his definition keeps the reality of this being a white cultural phenomenon while lowering the temperature of the discussion in ways that I think continue to be accurate, but less combative. I have not read Miller's book yet, and I think that I will disagree with parts of it because Miller is coming from a more conservative political and theological position than I do. But I think the combination is likely helpful to bring about more accuracy to the broader discussion.