This is the fourth in a series of articles to reflect on Christian Nationalism. For more on this topic, you can read my book, Go and Do Likewise: Following Jesus into Our Common Humanity.
If you’re Christian: Take some time to think about your own faith tradition. How does it invite you to respect, build relationships, and partner with people from other wisdom traditions and cultures?
If you’re part of another wisdom tradition: Consider the complex and intense conversation happening within Christianity right now.
I keep coming back to a simple formula:
Cultural Diversity + Social Distance = Distrust
Our growing cultural diversity, by itself, isn’t a problem. But human beings are wired to trust those in our in-group and to be cautious—sometimes even hostile—toward those who seem “other.” When we add historically high levels of isolation and group segregation, and the dehumanizing impact of social media, what begins as a natural tendency can spiral into a social crisis. And when that crisis goes unaddressed, it becomes a tragedy.
Christian Nationalists feel this same tension. But the solution they propose is very different from ours: reduce cultural diversity. They aim to do this in two main ways:
- Remove people who bring cultural diversity.
- Elevate Christianity and Christians to a higher status, while reducing people of other traditions and cultures to second-class status.
As Bryan Fischer, former director at the American Family Association, once said:
“The purpose of the First Amendment was most decidedly NOT to ‘approve, support, [or] accept’ any ‘religion’ other than Christianity. We are a Christian nation and not a Jewish or Muslim one.”
Abigail Adams, wife of the second President of the United States of America would not agree:
The Universal Parent has dispensed his blessings throughout all creation . . . Though seas, mountains, and rivers are geographical boundaries, they contract not the benevolence and the good will of the liberal mind, which can extend itself beyond the limits of country and kindred, and claim fellowship with Christian, Jew, or Turk. What a lesson, did the great Author of our religion give to mankind by the parable of the Jew and the Samaritan; but how little it has been regarded!
Abigail Adams
Bryan Fischer is not alone in his thinking. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and one of the initiators of Project 2025, envisions a government infused with Christian Nationalist principles—and plans to use government power to enforce them. These ideas would be pushed into nonprofits, corporations, schools, universities, and media organizations. Those who resist are punished with the full force of government power.
This is the use of governmental power to create a patrimonial system in which the most powerful get a cut of everything. This is an attempt to strengthen a system of status keeping that claims that Christians are the only humans worthy of respect. In our current environment, Christian Nationalism is both a theological movement and a deliberate policy and governance strategy.
But there are yet more extreme ideas.
J.D. Vance, now Vice President, often quotes Curtis Yarvin, a key “intellectual” of the New Right. Yarvin openly advocates for dismantling democracy and replacing it with a dictatorship—a CEO-style ruler who controls everything. He calls this vision the “dark enlightenment,” where democracy, equality, and progress are dismissed, and traditional hierarchies and authority are embraced.
“A stable society must be based on a stable moral code, not on an evolving consensus of progressive values.”
(Paraphrased from Yarvin’s blog, Unqualified Reservations, 2009)
It should be noted that these “traditional hierarchies” engaged in theft of land, genocide, and enslavement. Those “stable moral codes” were not enough to stop these massive moral failures.
What Yarvin misses are the roots of human rights, rule of law, and democracy within most major wisdom traditions in the world. When he rejects these, he is rejecting the values of most people in this nation, no matter their wisdom tradition.
Where Project 2025 offers a hollowed-out democracy dominated by Christian Nationalism, Yarvin wants no democracy at all—just a king-like CEO.
Old King George would be jealous. I don’t think we want him back.
Our Approach
At Paths to Understanding, and alongside many others across the country, we recognize the same challenge: distrust and rapid change. But we offer a different path.
We propose to:
- Reduce social distance and build trust
- Strengthen democracy through shared values
- Learn to face our differences with respect toward each other
We draw on the deep wisdom of global traditions and values, many of which are echoed by the Parliament of the World’s Religions and protected by the First Amendment:
- Non-violence and respect for life
- Solidarity and a just economic order
- Tolerance and a life of truthfulness
- Equal rights and partnership between men and women
- Sustainability and care for the Earth
A Choice
Each of us will need to decide:
- Will we allow Christian Nationalism to become the norm?
- Will we accept a future where people of other traditions and cultures are made second-class?
- Will we let Yarvin’s CEO Dictatorship take root?
Or will we work to renew our communities by reducing social distance and building trust?
As historian Anne Applebaum writes:
Authoritarianism rises not because people are forced — but because enough people choose it, hoping for clarity, belonging, or revenge.
She outlines the warning signs of what she calls “authoritarian drift”:
- Discrediting the Free Press – Media is labeled “fake,” “elite,” or “the enemy.”
- Loyalty to Leaders, Not Laws – Patriotism is tied to a person or party, not the Constitution.
- Attacking Dissent as Treason – Disagreement becomes disloyalty or even danger.
- Capture of Courts and Bureaucracy – Key institutions are stacked with loyalists.
- Emotional Manipulation through Fear and Nostalgia – “We can go back to when things were better—if you give us total control.”
She sees these signs in the world today. So do I. So do many leaders I engage with.
My Choice
The Christian tradition, within the broader Abrahamic family, has shaped my choice:
- There is One Creator—and therefore one humanity. To honor the Creator is to honor the Earth and all its people.
- Abraham was called to begin a new community, but always with the purpose of blessing all the tribes of the Earth. It is a tradition that at its best recognizes the pluralism of the Creator.
- Jesus welcomed and honored people of many traditions.
- Peter and Paul both came to see that those who love God and neighbor are acceptable to God.
- Our sacred vision is a banquet of healing where all the tribes of the world, each bringing the best of their traditions, come together—and where our tears are gently wiped away.
Whatever may come, I hope to live toward that vision of healing and reconciliation for all peoples.
Most of us feel overwhelmed by our distrust of each other and the pace of change. But I believe that, when given a real choice, most people do not want the world of Project 2025 or Yarvin’s dictatorship.
So I invite you: Go deep into your tradition, philosophy, or the wisdom of your ancestors and find your deep values.
Then ask yourself:
- What kind of world do you long for?
- What kind of world are you willing to work for and risk for?
- Who are you willing to work with?
Next week, I will discuss the human strategy that Paths to Understanding proposes as a way to build the world we long for.