From “The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy” by Jim Wallis
A foundational element of white Christian nationalism, one rooted in a mythological version of American history authored by its early settlers, is that America is a Christian nation. However, it is a “very particular kind of Christianity,” says sociologist Samuel Perry.
He explains that white Christian nationalism “isn’t characterized by, say, giving by life to Jesus or wanting to be a good discipline, but is about white Christian ethnoculture, a subculture that characterizes people like us who have been in charge and are the rightful rulers and whose culture should hold sway.” In other words, white Christian nationalism is not about true Christian faith; but rather about race and power.
White Christian nationalists are white first and Christian second, and today right-wing Republicans first and Christians second. Selective theology has always provided the justification for upholding racial and political power – from chattel slavery to the continuing evolution of white supremacy.
This, of course, all flies in the face of Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God, which meant to bring diverse and divided people together to be reconciled to Christ. It also contradicts the principles laid out by the founding fathers in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence; “All men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”