Confronting Christian nationalism

Using empathy and engagement

(Here’s my December column for the Holland Sentinel. The editor, Sarah Leach, has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the local government situation described in this column.)

I once came to a church as a young pastor and discovered flags at the front of the worship space – an American flag, which of course I recognized, but also a Christian flag, which at the time was new to me. Neither the Christian Reformed church of my childhood nor any church I had previously served had flags, indoors or out, so I was puzzled.

Being young and probably overconfident regarding my authority, I promptly moved both flags out of the worship space and into the fellowship hall. After worship the following Sunday, I was approached by a man who clearly had a military bearing. He introduced himself as “Bruce,” but I later learned that he had spent his entire career in U.S. naval intelligence and had retired with the rank of commander.

I expected the worst, but surprisingly Bruce apologized to me. He said, “I know the flags look bad, so this week I’ll get new ones, and I’ll polish those brass stands too. Next week everything will look great.” Bruce thought I moved the flags because they looked shabby.

Bruce and I came to know each other well over the next thirteen years. I learned a great deal from him (about flag etiquette and much more), and he somehow withstood my first question, which was, “Who or what are we worshiping here?” I miss him still.

I would like to think that over the next 40 years or so I learned something about re-arranging worship spaces without consulting anyone, but I never stopped asking my question. I find myself asking it today. Rather than losing its urgency, the question has become more urgent than ever. More and more, the evangelical church in the U.S. is embracing what looks like an unhealthy hybrid of Christian faith and patriotism, an ideology I can find nowhere in Jesus’ words or anywhere else in the Bible.

Tim Alberta, the author of two best-selling books about Christian nationalism, published a fascinating story in the December Atlantic Monthly about his father’s evangelical Presbyterian church in Brighton, Michigan. Under his father’s leadership, the church where Tim was raised grew from a few hundred to a few thousand members.

Tim’s father regularly mixed faith and patriotism on Sunday mornings. If, for example, a soldier showed up in worship, wearing a full dress uniform, his father would lead the congregation in a thunderous ovation. What Tim remembers even more vividly, though, was that if a visiting missionary was introduced to the congregation, that person would receive what he calls a “golf clap” – or tepid applause. At a young age, Tim began asking the “who or what are we worshipping?” question too.

The truth is, lots of us are asking that question. In late November I attended a meeting at the Holland Armory with a program titled “Confronting Christian Nationalism.” Making the presentation was an evangelical pastor named Doug Pagitt, who describes himself as “a proud, concerned, and hopeful American.” He is also the co-founder of a group called Vote Common Good, which is dedicated to encouraging “people of faith to engage in civic life.”

What drove the attendance that night was that we in Ottawa County are, as Pagitt put it, “at the center of the swirl.” As most Holland Sentinel readers know, a group of evangelical Christian citizens from Ottawa County, deeply concerned about the response of state and local government to the Covid-19 pandemic, formed a group called Ottawa Impact and in the last election ousted the incumbent Republican commissioners from the county board.

What Pagitt encouraged in response was “empathy and engagement,” though the title of the program, I thought, suggested something different and should probably be reconsidered. To Pagitt’s credit, he asked the members of the audience to try to understand what motivates a group like Ottawa Impact as well as those who elected and continue to support them.

Overall, I thought it was a balanced presentation, and I agree that we need to make “civic involvement a discipleship project,” we need to “learn to talk about politics,” we should “resist us vs. them” language, and we should respond with “empathy and engagement.” I would like to think that I have spent my life doing those things, though clearly I could be doing more.

I am a Christian, I am a pastor, and I am a U.S. citizen. I have other identities too, like husband, father, and long-distance runner, but through most of my life the first three identities I mentioned have required considerable effort to hold in balance. It isn’t always easy. Nor should it be.

(Photo: That’s my house on the Fourth of July.)