Friend:

“White Christian Nationalism is the greatest threat to democracy and the witness of the church today.” I was nodding from my seat at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday when college professor and author Jemar Tisby, a historian of race and religion, spoke those words. I agreed and offered a response during the Q&A: “Church-state separation feels like the obvious solution and antidote.”

Our remarks came during a presentation organized by Brookings and the Public Religion Research Institute to discuss their recent survey on white Christian Nationalism. There were no real surprises – we at AU have been warning about this threat to our democracy for years. But the study is alarming nonetheless. Nearly 30 percent of respondents are adherents or sympathizers of Christian Nationalism, the view that America was created for Christians and that our laws should reflect that. 

The study noted that white Christian Nationalists are more likely to espouse racist, antisemitic, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and patriarchal views. The survey also found a correlation between white Christian Nationalism and a penchant for personal and political violence and authoritarianism. We saw this convergence of ideologies during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and in several recent terror attacks and other violence directed at vulnerable groups.

I encourage you to watch the Brookings-PRRI presentation for yourself (you’ll see me speak about an hour and 25 minutes into the video). It’s an important, thought-provoking discussion with experts that, in addition to Tisby, include my long-time friend Robert Jones, president of PRRI; E.J. Dionne, another friend who is a senior fellow at Brookings, a columnist for The Washington Post, and a professor at Georgetown University (I’ll be speaking to his class later this month); author and Calvin University professor Kristin Kobes Du Mez; and Peter Wehner, author and senior fellow at The Trinity Forum. I was fortunate to meet with several of the featured experts and Todd Stiefel from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation for lunch afterward to delve deeper into this existential threat to our democracy.

It's not all doom and gloom. The study confirmed the vast majority of Americans don’t adhere to white Christian Nationalism. Now it’s our job, yours and mine, to convey the threat of this dangerous, un-American ideology, speak out against it and recruit others to join us in defeating it. One opportunity to do that will be at our inaugural Summit for Religious Freedom (SRF) on April 22-24; learn more here. It’s going to be amazing to all be together in person, and of course, we will offer a virtual component too.

We need a national recommitment to the separation of the church and state. It’s the antidote to white Christian Nationalism and the shield that protects our democracy.

With hope and determination,

Rachel K. Laser
President and CEO