A Christian Nationalism Discussion with Andrew L. Seidel

[Music] [Music] hi i'm dan barker that sign said coffee in conversation with andrew seidl which is coming up in a second i'm the co-president of the freedom from religion foundation since uh since when was that back in 2004 i joined the staff in 1987. so i'm still a newcomer here at ffrf and this is ffrs weekly ask an atheist on facebook live today is wednesday april the 7th and yesterday april the 6th was a really big day for us here at ffrf we had a number of things happen besides the fact that our ron reagan which you just saw ran last night on the rachel maddow show we also had a big victory in alabama a significant state church victory which uh what i'll talk about briefly in a minute and then next week our show next week is going to be about that alabama victory about voting rights in alabama for atheists and we also yesterday on april the 6th which is the three-month what do you call it a month-iversary anniversary what do you call a three month anniversary of the january 6th insurrection yesterday we had a full page ad in the new york times and there it is there one nation under god january 6th was a faith-based initiative a full-color full-page ad showing the christians there at the cross they're praying you can see that as they are as they are invading our capital they're praying in the name of jesus and uh also yesterday was the debut of a new uh we're testing it out a new show a new zoom show called coffee and conversation and it's a chance it's going to be a monthly show and if you like it we'll keep doing it yesterday we debuted with andrew seidel talking about the january 6th insurrection and why it truly was a faith-based initiative so today we are going to watch part of that coffee and conversation show that aired yesterday with andrew seidl and there will be there's questions and answers during that and if you want to make some questions today live today i'll be watching this show on my phone here and i might be able to respond to you in the comments to facebook but otherwise i hope you really enjoy watching this because andrew did a wonderful job of delineating and explaining the real problem behind there were many other problems but let's listen to andrew seidel coffee in conversation about the january 6th faith-based initiative so it's not often i haven't heard of it happening to many authors that you choose a subtitle for a book and then the subject runs out to prove you right but exactly three months ago christian nationalists attacked american democracy and attempted to overturn the results of a free and fair election and prove beyond all doubt that christian nationalism is un-american christian nationalism ripped off its mask showing that it is not this scholarly debate about how america was founded but a violent exclusionary movement bent on seizing power here and now that insurance insurrection launched the conversation that some of us andrew whitehead sam perry catherine stewart robbie jones chrissy stroup sarah posner michelle goldberg jack jenkins jeff charlotte and many more had been having in the margins into the mainstream and since january 6 i have been scouring photos and videos and court cases just kind of dipping a toe into this world is alarming but i have immersed myself in it and i am more convinced than ever about the role that christian nationalism played in attacking our democracy and i'm sure many of you like me watched in horror as that assault unfolded but i just i really want to set this stage a bit to remind us all of just some just a taste of the christian nationalism from that day so paula white began the day with a prayer and in true christian nationalist fashion she added the united states of america to the lord's prayer that is written down in matthew 6. she added america to a prayer that according to the bible jesus himself prescribed and crafted in that same chapter by the way jesus also tells people to pray in private and not in public like the hypocrites praying to be seen by others but christian nationalists always seem to ignore that biblical command the rally that began with that prayer ended with trump calling on his mob to march to the capitol his last words were the same ones that nixon used to distract this country from watergate god bless you and god bless america impromptu worship concerts broke out on the short walk to the capitol on their march to the capitol the proud boys were hailed as god's warriors and knelt in prayer full of typical christian nationalist rhetoric about restoring the nation they marched and then they attacked one attacker carried a christian flag onto the floor of the senate the absurdly self-proclaimed cubanon shaman led a prayer in the senate about patriotism jesus and restoring the nation ending the prayer in jesus name one of those praying insurrectionists gave an interview later and talked about that same prayer saying of the senate quote we consecrated it to jesus that to me was the ultimate statement of where we are in this movement and indeed it is a third praying insurrection posted a video saying i just wanted to get inside the building so i could plead the blood of jesus over it that was my goal in that video he spends 40 minutes recounting every act most of it pleading the blood but he attributes every action to this dialogue that he had with jesus and he recounts that dialogue in the video god told him to do it he also said that he would start a prison ministry when he was sent away for his crimes another insurrection is sipping a post-assault beer told her social media media followers exactly why she attacked the beating heart of american democracy to me quote she said to me quote to me god and country are tied to me they're one and the same we're founded as a christian country and we see how far we've come from that we are a godly country and we are founded on godly principles and and the idea that we are a christian country and that we've slipped from those founding principles is a central tenet of christian nationalism and their primary justification for harmful retrogressive public policy as well as assaulting democracy and you know again the imagery from the day is now infamous a huge wooden cross juxtaposed with the gallows from which they wanted to hang our elected officials they actually signed the gallows as if it were a yearbook writing on it hang them high in god we trust god bless the usa hang for treason and amen the flags and signs were clear jesus is my savior trump is my president one nation under god in god we trust jesus saves jesus 2020 there were bible verses and crosses one sign simply said i am on your side god there were catholic images of jesus or mary on banners paintings and statues some born atop poles over the heads of the attackers a bible was raised above the crowd like a napoleonic eagle as the mob surged through one of the entrances one of the people who entered the capital was a catholic the demon baphomet while he was inside another was a youth pastor from florida others were missionaries they sang the battle hymn of the republic glory glory hallelujah his truth is marching on and prayed in the rotunda one group the jericho march had been founded by two federal workers who were sent visions from god to quote let the church roar the battle of jericho was a genocide in the story the biblical god orders his followers to march around the city while blowing shofars ram's horns and carrying the ark holding his commandments and then orders them to violently sack the city steal all the valuables and murder every living thing including animals so the jericho march which was formed after trump lost baptized itself after this biblical genocide and then sought to reenact the slaughter by blowing shofars marching around government buildings in dc and at state capitals and declaring that we are one nation under god and organizing rallies alongside the stop the steel charlatans and it wasn't just imagery and rhetoric it was a devout belief that this is a christian nation and that god chose donald trump i mean remember trump himself looked up and said i am the chosen one remember this that god was on their side the attacker who kicked in speaker pelosi's door hoping to quote tear her into little pieces was an attorney and his rantings were actually recounted at one of his hearings after he was charged he said quote god is on trump's side god is not on the democrat side and if patriots have to kill 60 million of these communists it is god's will now there were of course other motivations for the attack there were other drivers of the attack but the christian nationalist permission structure doing god's will fighting for god's law returning this country to its christian roots pervaded those other obvious drivers of the attack for instance the insurrection had this distinct q anon flavor but study after study is now exposing the link between q and on and christian nationalism and or white evangelicalism and this was a largely white crowd too the black lives matter protesters in dc neither received nor expected such leniency that summer when they were protesting when the looting starts the shooting starts trump warned in may 2020 quoting a phrase that's got a very long and racist history trump had those peaceful protesters gassed beaten and brutalized with rubber bullets so that he could walk to a church and pose with a bible for a photo and the point of that malignant stroll was to show that we are a bible-believing bible-beating christian nation and anybody else who disagrees should be beaten aghast so to speak of christian nationalism is really to speak of white christian nationalism and this was a privileged mob that roamed the halls without fear they were brazenly entitled perhaps they mistakenly believed that trump would pardon them but they certainly believed that this is their country given to them by their god that they are acting on his orders and defending his chosen one and when reality collides with a belief system like that violence is almost inevitable so entitlement and violence and all of that is based on disinformation the entire christian nationalist identity is based on disinformation right it's not a scholarly debate about our history it's a sinister exclusionary movement it is an attempt to redefine america according to the christian nationalist identity and disinformation and then reshape our law accordingly and you've heard the disinformation before if you've ever seen me talk before you've heard me talk about it many times that we're one nation under god in god we trust that the declaration of independence references the christian god four different times they prayed at the constitutional convention that george washington got down and on his knees in the snow at valley forge and prayed that our laws are based on the golden rule which comes from christianity and then our laws are also based on the ten commandments none of that is true and without their origin myths their identity begins to wither their entire political and ideological reality is actually vulnerable because it is based on that disinformation and that becomes really clear when you explore the myths and the lies that undergird this truly un-american political ideology so it's it but it's also it's not just that the identity is based on disinformation it's bigger than that it's that the judeo-christian principles and especially those that are central to the identity are thoroughly opposed to the principles on which the united states was built now before i open this up to questions and we can have a little bit more of a conversation i just want to talk about one of the more common myths that i always see a little bit this time of year that i just mentioned um that this identity is based on so let's talk about how the ten commandments fundamentally conflict with our nation's core principles sure some of the ten commandments overlap with criminal laws that prohibit murder and theft and perjury including laws probably in your state but those rules are not exclusive or original to judeo-christianity there are universal human principles that every successful society we know of has adopted and there's actually some really compelling evidence to suggest that the biblical version of those prohibitions didn't apply to anyone but fellow believers in other words the biblical version of these universal principles was not universal either way it's it's very hard to credibly claim that the biblical iterations of those universal rules influenced the american founding and the rest of the ten commandments are downright unamerican they begin i am the lord your god you shall have no other gods before me that divine command embodies principles that directly conflict with the principles that found in the united states no law can tell an american to worship a god let alone which god we are free to be godless and a growing number are or we can if we wish worship every god from every holy book and the commandments continue in this un-american vein they prohibit free expression and art the graven images are idols they prohibit free speech taking the lord's name in vain they sanction slavery twice in exodus 20 10 and 17. the ten commandments even promise to punish innocent children to the third and fourth generation if parents are brazen enough to exercise the religious freedom guaranteed in the first amendment of the u.s constitution the tenth commandment is perhaps the worst it condones slavery treats women as chattel and criminalizes thought and incidentally most of the ten commandments ten commandments monuments that you see in public spaces or on government property edit out these more horrific parts of the ten commandments and just think for a second about what a damning statement that is we use our morality to cut out the immoral parts of the ten commandments including the two mentions of slavery and punishing punishing innocent children we are more moral than god's most moral laws according to the stone monuments they put up and they don't even realize this it's kind of great and the comparison between christianity and the american constitutional system continues like this i could list plenty more but i really do want to get to question so i'm going to start wrapping this up we can beat christian nationalism we can relegate it back to the fringe once it came by exposing the disinformation that feeds the identity we won't convince all christian nationalists to change but we can alert most of the country to the danger and prevent our government from giving aid and sucker to the un-american identity that assaulted our democracy again this entire identity is based on lies and myths but it is validated by modern representations of the myths that previous christian nationalists have imposed on this country during crises their erroneous beliefs are validated when they see in god we trust on our money or on a government building or when they're told as school children that this is one nation under god when congress opens with prayers that assures every christian nationalist that this is indeed his america the ten commandments monuments that sit on government property and proclaim i am the lord thy god the christian nationalist identity draws legitimacy from these artifacts left by previous waves of christian nationalism forced on the country and really these relics are disfiguring scars which ought to remind us that christian nationalists have justified slavery sanctified segregation and now inspired in insurrection instead those scars reinforce an un-american identity and until we erase those scars we are giving aid and comfort to a traitor to the american philosophy america is a shared idea that's what we are at its most our most basic level america is a shared idea and christian nationalism refuses to share it excludes non-christians and the wrong kind of christians america will never be a christian nation because the moment it becomes a christian nation it will cease to be america the two cannot peacefully coexist one will triumph this is the choice that we face as a nation christian nationalism or america we cannot have both thank you okay so i'm gonna assume you're all clapping now i'm gonna take a moment to take a sip of coffee here and we're gonna get to questions in just a second i want to do two quick housekeeping notes first um there's a lot more information in my book the founding myth right back there uh the founding myth why christian nationalism is unamerican that subtitle that approved point proven on january 6th and as many of you will remember that book was burned by a christian nationalist preacher a guy named greg locke he was there in dc on january 5th he said a prayer for the proud boys it was this very militant prayer you know the the leap from burning books uh to you know kind of stoking and insurrection is apparently a pretty short step actually uh if you would like to get a signed copy of the book that scared the man who stoked the fires of insurrection to the point where he took a blow torch to the book you can do that through ffrf's website um lauren or christina is going to post in the chat a link to where you can get that book and i will sign it for you if you would like me to personalize it i can do that as well you just have to leave a little note when you're checking out uh and there's a comment box that'll pop up and you can just say andrew please you know write something in there um i can do it to tom or to christina whoever whatever you want they also make a great gift um and basically i mean we're talking collector's items here and then second my first interaction with locke came because of ffrf's ron reagan ad i suggested that we air it during the debates and that really upset mr locke and that commercial as you probably know it ends ron reagan unabashed atheist not afraid of burning in hell and that line was all wrong and now ffrf has this line of bumper stickers and t-shirts and we have these cool mugs so if you didn't get a chance to see this um these are amazing handmade mugs uh if you know anything about me you know that i get up at 5am every morning to write coffee is a must so i consider myself something of a connoisseur of good mugs and this mug really is excellent it's it's handmade well insulated and it has this kind of like reassuring heft to it uh so you can get one of those uh that will also be in the chat or you can go to ffrf.uss mug i'm not an atheist i'm a pantheist so it's a little different thing but for all practical purposes i say thank god i'm an atheist so i'm spiritual but i definitely do not believe the christian god at all but um but it's interesting is they talk about how now we have less than 50 of people like go to church that's a big thing that came out this last week as one pastor responded to that by saying hey this is not a good thing because they're going to go and follow some crazy false prophets that the church keeps them sane and if they're leaving the church but they're not becoming atheists what they're becoming is crazy christians that have no clue what the gospel really about so how do we deal with that kind of an attitude of why we have to support the church because it's even worse to have them go away into some kind of social media you know yeah i mean i i mean the underlying premise of that counter argument by by the i don't know exactly which one you're mentioning but this argument was made a lot after the gala gallup poll uh was published uh essentially look that this is this is a bad thing people need church or hey you know this actually doesn't really it doesn't necessarily mean people are becoming non-religious just that they're not going to church as much and who knows what's filling that void um and the first thing i want to point out is there is no god-shaped hole in human beings if there were a god-shaped hole and if we needed religion right the church wouldn't tell you to have to come back every single week that wouldn't have been enforced by law and by fire for millennia right we don't we need community which is not the same as needing religion religion is just a subset of the the community need we are social animals so that's number one we don't need religion we don't need church and number two is that that gallup poll is and they were very careful to say this and gallup was in its analysis part of an overall trend of people leaving religion and they wanted to point out one that this is not necessarily just attributable to the coven pandemic because they actually if you want to get into it a little bit they um average over three years what the numbers are but also uh part of an overall trend that really started in about 20 years ago of people leaving religion and i mean the truth is americans are finally waking up um to the fact that religion is is um not something they need and is often a deeply harmful social construct um so i i'm very heartened by the gallup poll it's another data piece in that overall um uh slide of america finally waking up and leaving religion behind thank you for that question peter great question i thank you so much for your work um this is uh incredibly uh insightful um my question uh goes to the origins of these beliefs um and you've touched on these points uh in your discussion uh it's obviously well known that religion provides that sense of community and social constructs that we need as as human beings but i'm just curious if you could speak to the motivations behind that um are people drawn into this movement solely because of uh ideology and their beliefs and the traditions uh or are there ulterior motives where uh it's a it's a vehicle for people to begin to exercise control and uh gain power over people and of course the acquisition of wealth the church is extremely wealthy yeah i mean this is sort of an age-old question um and you know i think it's probably i think we can say that by and large most of the people um genuinely believe this on some level um certain the flock let's say um otherwise it wouldn't be it wouldn't be useful or profitable for the leaders um but the the question of you know do the do the leaders do when we don't even have to limit it to christian nationalism i mean this is something we think about with with mega church preachers and these prosperity gospel preachers all the time do they really believe what they're spouting or are they just doing it to get rich quick uh i mean and it's it's sort of this perennial question uh and i mean i don't know the answer i don't know that we'll ever know the answer unless you get a you know a hot mic moment or or a tape and even then um it's not something that you're going to be able to apply to everyone and i tend to think that it's probably a mix i think there are probably some of each either way it doesn't necessarily alter how we are going to push back and and our strategy for um from taking the power back from this movement and from those preachers um so it's a fascinating question but i guess frank the bottom line is i don't know and i don't know that we will ever know i'm sure there are some that are disingenuous and i'm sure there are there are a few that are that believe i also think it's worth pointing out right that people's beliefs change over time um you know i mean dan barker ffrf co-president was was a devout believer who slowly um you know went away from religion and now has helped found something called the clergy project which has these hundreds perhaps thousands now people who are religious leaders preaching in the pulpit today that are atheists that don't believe but they don't know how to get out of the system that they're stuck in so i think we also need to always kind of keep that in mind we like to categorize people and say okay you're this and then kind of move on but people's beliefs change over time too thanks frank that's a really good question i wish i had a better answer for you but the bottom line is i don't know you said that it was quite disturbing to completely immerse yourself in the christian nationalism since the attack on the capitol so what's the worst thing you have experienced that's a that's a hard one um i mean so what i've been doing i've been looking through watching i mean there are a lot more videos and photos and interviews from the insurrection than i think most people realize you know the stuff you see in the news articles barely scratches the surface um for instance propublica scraped all the videos of the insurrection off of parlor you know sort of the christian nationalist conservative version of twitter before that shut down and you can see all these different videos i mean there's there's hours of footage from that day that most people don't realize exists and then i've also read through most probably not all of the charging documents and the affidavits in the court cases uh involving the people uh who actually attacked at the capitol um and those are still rolling in today um and they're they're it's hard to pick out one that is prob that i would say is the worst but there are a few that certainly stand out um one of the uber white nationalist assaulters uh wore a proud boys t-shirt flashed that white power hands signal um talked frequently or talked about wanting to be a lone wolf killer and he was actually on parole he shouldn't have even been able to get to dc but he got to dc by telling his parole officer he was going to go distribute bibles for gideon's international that was the excuse he used and so his parole officer let him go ahead and go to dc and this is a person who professed to want to be a lone wolf killer and liking himself to some of these uh really scary people and events um and he used religion as an excuse it was just a really palpable example um i mentioned the the attorney uh who tried who kicked in speaker pelosi's door wanting to tear her quote into little pieces uh and the language that he used at the beginning uh i i think people don't realize how how tied the [Music] the violence is to the belief that god is on your side um i think the i think this is something the media has been unwilling to really explore fully in depth because the media is often unwilling to seem critical of religion but to me that is that is probably the most alarming thread that runs through it i mean and it's obvious too right like the jericho march organized many of these events and they named themselves after a genocide i mean you don't get more clear than that they had bailed this huge rally in dc that was sort of the prototypical rally really helped stoke a lot of these um the these uh feelings in people uh i mean and they almost every speaker there and you you would recognize all of them as christian nationalists talked about the battle of jericho in these these glowing terms and it is a genocide where they so deeply believe it that they don't even it's almost like they don't consider it violence because they're doing it in their god's name i mean it is it is scary the the voltaire quote uh that jamie raskin also mentioned uh when he was representative jamie raskin mentioned when he was doing the impeachment trial those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities that paraphrase um that's from uh voltaire's questions on miracles um and it's obviously written in french so this is our popular paraphrase i mean but it is accurate that paraphrase is accurate and that that for me is the most disturbed and you see it time and time again when you when you're swimming in that that toxic world thank you leader i i encounter many people who are unaware of the christian connection to the insurrection um you know people who watch mainstream media why is the mainstream media so reluctant to make that connection to christian nationalism yeah i mean it's it's a good question um and i think i think part of it is just a basic sort of self-preservation instinct um you know i mean there are the majority of the country is still religious in one way shape or form um and i think to be seen to be criticizing the majority of the country might um hurt their bottom line i think i think that's a simple part of it um there are a lot of a lot of the reporters who cover religion are are religious themselves uh is probably another small portion of the explanation for that it's it i think it's kind of hard it's hard to pin down the one other thing i will say is that um christian nationalism the the new popular argument against christian nationalism is that it is not christian um and and this is something that uh you'll you you probably heard a lot more of that that it was a perversion of christianity the people who were attacking uh the capital uh that that no true christian would would do something like this uh and that isn't a popular argument that we've seen time and time again in response to previous waves of christian nationalism uh and i do get into this a little bit in the founding myth it's something i'd certainly like to explore more um and i think that argument's good in one way uh the no true christian argument helps liberalize american christianity which is i mean it's a great thing for human progress right um but that it comes at a cost to our country because that that argument it splits christianity into competing political camps and there's actually good evidence that american christianity seems to be reorganizing not around sectarian lines but around political parties um but as then christianity advances it leaves behind these these footholds uh these government stamps of approval these christian relics um that christian nationalists impose on countries on our country uh and on our children during times of fear and crisis and then when they have these later waves of christian nationalism they can point to the in god we trust they can point to one nation under god and say look see we we are right about this and so by saying that it is not christian you don't actually you may advance the religious argument but you don't advance the argument for our country at all it's one of the reasons i i chose the subtitle for the book that i did but i wanted to take on this argument that christian nationalism is un-american um i think that is the more effective way for us to fight against it um but i mean i the the bottom line is um yeah yes you're right that the media is reluctant to criticize religion in any way shape or form um and when they do they tend to do that no true scotsman fallacy instead of recognizing it for for what it is i mean christian nationalism was a faith-based initiative and um this is a great time for me uh richard and i did not coordinate this but it's also a great time to mention that uh ffrf is actually publishing today in the wall street journal and in the new york times ads advertisements that say this we use the phrase we talk about christian nationalism and the attack on the capital and say that it was a faith-based initiative so we are not shying away from it and we're putting we're putting that message in the media i mean we're paying to do so but it is absolutely worth doing so thank you richard for that opportunity to to pitch ffrs ads anyway the news release is probably already out maybe lauren or christina can go find it and put it in the chat for everybody we're just uh asking about um i had read an article about christian nationalism a christian nationalist in particular being very reluctant to get to go ahead and get the vaccine mainly for religious reasons and i was just kind of curious how do you think that's going to play out um in the future given that we're going to need a vaccination proof a card to travel is that going to be a supreme court fight and how is that a great question yeah great question i mean i think it i think there will be legal fights around it um first so yes um and actually the new york times just published an article about how white evangelicals are really driving um this vaccine reluctance is the nice phrase for it i believe um and that's actually not quite accurate um you know it when when trump won in 2020 everybody pointed to that 81 percent of white evangelicals that supported him as as the the sort of the driving force of that election um that number was taken from um exit polls and turned out to be slightly lower uh in reality but but still very high um but the better predictor better than being a white evangelical was thinking that the united states was founded as a christian nation and and that is the defining characteristic of a christian nationalist so being a christian nationalist was a better predictor of a trump voter in 2016 than being a white evangelical and the same thing can be said of people who hold these vaccine reluctant views and and people who take risks when it comes to covet who are willing to go out and um eat in restaurants at the height of the pandemic who don't anti-massacres um so it's the white evangelicals is sort of um it misses the point slightly it really is christian nationalist and and andrew whitehead and sam perry have done extensive research on this um on both of those in 2016 election and the the sort of risky behavior surrounding covid um so you can check out their studies on on those two points um i do think it will be a supreme court or a legal fight at some point um i mean the real danger here right is if we don't get to some sort of herd immunity with vaccines and i'm not a doctor so pardon me if i'm using the wrong terms i'm not talking about getting hurt immunity by letting everybody get sick the the the virus can continue to mutate and change and we're going to see more and more of these variants it's one of the reasons we need to do this as quickly as we can and they are a huge roadblock to that as they have been throughout this pandemic taking multiple cases to the supreme court arguing that they should be able to meet in person because people also have to go to the grocery stores to get food which is not the same thing as going to a church and sitting in the pews and singing for an hour it's just not even close to the same thing but they've taken those cases all the way to the supreme court uh and this is something i'm exploring in the new book that i'm writing i'm getting up at 5am to write and you know i've got my my coffee every morning i'm writing a book called weaponizing religious freedom and a a big chunk of it so far the draft has been on this this attempt to weaponize religious freedom as it pertains to the covid fight so i'm not exactly sure how it's going to play out with the vaccine but i think you're absolutely right kristen to to to believe that that is going to end up being a legal fight at some point i mean we just saw that governor greg abbott who is more than happy to jump on the christian national bandwagon at every turn um said i think he did he just passed the law or signed a law somehow banning um vaccine passports which i mean i've traveled extensively internationally and you've got to get vaccines to go places that's just the way it is so anyway um good question we will see your your right to look at it and and certainly stay tuned to ffrf because we will be fighting and informing on that very issue my question gets uh goes back to the q and on connection to short christian nationalism just wondering how many if that rf has been tracking how many posts from the anonymous queue over the past few years have been specifically christian nationalists in tone kind of getting back to what you were talking about that there's probably a lot of denial out there from uh progressive and moderate christians that cueing on and the storming of the capital had anything to do with chris yeah i i haven't specifically uh gotten into that i do i did at one time go through some of those posts um and and there is some pretty over christian nationalism in there i mean it was also i'm sure everybody saw it was on display at the the capitol as well uh one of the most memorable moments for me from the capitol was um a woman in a red maga hat was carrying a probably like a four foot tall portrait of of white jesus you know that that white american jesus um portrait and they had photoshopped onto the jesus uh red also maga hat you know and um on jesus's white robes there's this um q anon has this wwg one wga is sort of their rallying cry uh acronym thing um it doesn't matter what it stands for but uh you know i mean the woman was carrying this portrait um along with her trump hat along with her trust i mean so it's trump it's maga it's cuban on its jesus sort of all rolled into one it's it's almost the perfect image for that um that sign there were other people who also had signs that were very clearly um clearly linked the two uh if everybody remembers that that uh the bedazzled self-proclaimed cubanon shaman um you know he held up a sign at a protest in arizona shortly after the election um that's uh that said hold the line patriots god wins and then on the flip side of it said q sent me um and i mean you know then this is a guy who again he calls himself q shaman he's a failed actor i mean he gave an interview with the bbc shortly after the insurrection he said i've done nothing wrong i have truth in god on my side uh he told the fbi that he was able to get in the senate quote by the grace of god right so i mean it goes back to that central belief that they believe they're doing god's work and that's what's motivating them and that's why they feel so entitled and privileged to break the law so i mean it is the two are intimately related and there are multiple studies that are now coming out that are showing this sort of intimate incestuous relationship between uh christian nationalism and white evangelicalism and cubanon um but um we ffrf has not done anything formal uh on on exploring the posts specifically um i have looked at them and i i can tell you there are some pretty they're overt christian nationalist moments in those posts but um we haven't gotten into it too much no my question is how can we dismantle this idea of ceremonial dayism that people are using to say oh the cross isn't really christian oh it doesn't really signify what can we do about that yeah i mean that's a great question and it goes back to one of the ways that i think we need to be talking about christian nationalism christian nationalism assaulted our democracy and it draws legitimacy from ceremonial deism for people who aren't familiar with that term it's it's sort of a term that that courts and legal scholars have adopted to describe essentially describe things that are clear violations of the separation of state and church but nah they're kind of small so we're going to go ahead and let them slide things like adopting in god we trust is the national motto or adding under god to the pledge or saying a prayer before the legislative body opens be it a state or state legislature or congress essentially it's saying like look this is so small we're not going to worry about it um and and i mean that's fundamentally not true and it's also wildly hypocritical i mean right like just pause to imagine for a moment if a court did with uh john 3 16 or praying the rosary what it has done with in god we trust in one nation under god imagine if a court said yeah you know we've heard john 3 16 so many times that through rote repetition it's lost all religious significance it's not really religious anymore i mean that would piss every single christian in the country off to have a federal court declaring that you know the the bible verse that sums up their religion is not religious and rightfully so they would be right to be upset about that um and right to challenge it in court if they want it but that same fiction has been employed to defend uh these so-called smaller violations which again are not small but i i think one of the things that we can do first we already talked about the gallup poll and we already mentioned that the country is going away from religion i think that is going to help us on that fight because while we may not win in court anytime soon especially the way the courts have been packed we need court reform now we certainly can win through democratic reforms small d democratic reforms uh not not political party partisan democratic reforms uh so i think that and then and then the second last point on that is we can tie these things directly to christian nationalism under god was imposed on the country during a wave of christian nationalism in the 1950s also giving us the national day of prayer and a whole host of other christian nationalist relics uh in god we trust was first added to our coins uh by three christian nationalists including one who wanted to amend the constitution to add jesus's name to it um during the 1863 really and then finally it was done in 1864. i mean pointing that these things are christian national they they were imposed on the country during times of fear and national crisis by christian nationalists and that christian nationalists draw their legitimacy i mean i saw and have seen so many in god we trust and one nation under god signs and speeches related to this insurrection you would not believe it uh i think we need to hang that around their neck and and continue to hammer it over and over again i also have a question from daryl barker uh daryl this uh is not going to be using his mic i'm just going to read his question for him hi daryl hey daryl seems to me that with church attendance at an all-time i don't know if it's as low these days do you know of any out atheist that has the interest and ability to successfully run and win for president of the united states who would you suspect could win um i mean that's a great question i don't know of any out atheist that really identifies and uses and adopts that label there are certainly non-religious members of congress right now there's the congressional free thought caucus which has formed a few years ago and is growing um though you don't have to be non-religious to be a member of that um i mean jamie raskin is is does not identify as an atheist um but he has a is a co-founder of the free thought caucus and has really i think um elevated uh his reputation in the eyes of much of the country uh with what he did after the insurrection and during during the insurrection itself um so i i mean that that is probably the possibility that maybe most likely jumps to mind um i'm going to add a just a couple things one historically there have been lower there have been times when the united states was less churched especially around the founding um but not necessarily uh by the same study so the gallup study only goes back to i believe the early 1930s but don't quote me on that um there are other studies looking at the population of the americas during the 1770s 80s 90s that suggest that you know like less than a fifth of the people were were formally churched um there's a lot of argument among historians about where exactly that would fall um and i'll also just say that i think we are going we are coming up on a demographic tipping point um the default has always been i'm a christian so if you ask somebody what are you even if they're not really religious the default has always been i'm a christian and that default is changing and i think once we're gonna we're going to hit a critical mass soon and that change is going to accelerate so the the trend away from religion has been going like this and i actually think it's going to start going like this once we hit that tipping point um i've talked to several demographers and sociologists um i don't have a good source for this but i can tell you that informally most of them agree with that um analysis that's not just i don't just go spout things that i'm that i'm not entirely sure of without some uh checking on my part so um it's it's something to look forward to the demographics are really in our favor right now and the trends as well this is from marcy shaver um i've heard hi marcy i've heard that paganism is becoming the favored religion of white supremacy how does that fit into the picture yeah um there are overlaps i'm certainly not an expert in paganism um or white supremacy for that matter um but um christian nationalism and the overlap with white supremacy is is you know if you were looking at that as a venn diagram it's pretty damn close to a circle um robbie jones who uh runs prri and wrote the end of white christian america and white too long which is a book about white supremacy and uh the church he grew up in really likes to not say christian nationalism but say white christian nationalism um and when we speak of christian nationalism when i speak of it i am speaking of white christian nationalism and and the data backs this up too um if you are a um a black american asked do you think the united states was founded as a christian nation and say yes that vision is very different uh from the vision of a white person white american who also thinks the united states was founded as a christian nation and the data backs that up and uh perry and whitehead have done some great breakdowns of that in their research um so i i think there is a massive overlap i don't feel qualified to speak on paganism i mean they've adopted a lot of those symbols certainly but beyond that i'm not i'm not going to opine more but thank you for the question good morning and thank you for this how do the christian nationalists dismiss the establishment cause clause of the first amendment are the founding fathers were authoring the fir the the amendments and the constitution how do they dismiss others they have a couple different ways they have a couple of favored arguments it's a good question james one of them is uh well show me where the words separation of state and church appear in the constitution um which you can't do because those words don't appear neither does right to privacy or separation of powers right it's a con separation of state in church is a convenient shorthand and the wall of separation is a is a nice metaphor to sum up what could be a complicated legal topic otherwise um so dan barker also likes to point out that christmas doesn't appear in the bible um norton i think also holy trinity doesn't dana let me know in the in the chat there uh so that's one of their favorites they also another very popular one is to say well part of being a christian nation is that really what they meant is that no particular brand of christianity is going to be favored under the first amendment um but christians are favored above everybody else which is like kind of the definition of christian nationalism and not what the founders meant um so i mean those are sort of their their two uh most favored i do get into a few of the other ones in in the founding myth if you haven't picked up a copy of that um and we do debunk ffrf debunks a lot of these these talking points on our website under the faq section i think we even have an faq about um separation of state and church not being in the constitution thanks james and and just by the way i did see one of the questions um since you brought up the founding myth um was uh do you have a title for the new book that's coming and what is can you share that title uh the working title is is not yet approved by the publisher but i'm gonna fight a little bit harder for this one uh is weaponizing religious freedom uh i think it sums up nicely the the argument without uh even having to crack the book though you should uh but yeah it's it's still the publication's not going to be i believe now until fall of 2021 um though the the penny scripts due in 239 days not that i'm counting i just wanted to point that whether it would be helpful or maybe overly inflammatory because you know one thing that seemed to be analogous to me is the rhetoric expressed by christian nationalists and that expressed by isis you know who were the islamic nationalists and you know you could take what they say substitute god for allah and and the speech sounds the same so i don't know yeah it's a good question i have not found it to be very effective um i know um i know a lot of people like to liken christian nationalists to the taliban and things like that i i haven't found it very effective it may be more effective post january 6th um than pre-january 6th um the one thing that i will say that i i have found two things very effective um calling christian nationalists christian nationalists um so not saying uh their their dominionists or their seven mountain dominionists or their reconstructionists or their rush duty reconstructionist or any of the other possible names christian nationalism really explains what they believe and what they are trying to do concisely and well and it the feeling of that phrase is accurate the feeling that it inspires in people who hear it is accurate uh in terms of what they are trying to do um so i really encourage everybody to drop all the other phrases that they use and and adopt christian nationalism i mean don't use it where it's it's you know you're not talking about a christian nationalist but it is it is certainly better um so i mean that that to me is number one and then number two is what i did in the founding myth which is talk about it as un-american talk about christian nationalism as un-american that is not something they are used to and the goal is to redefine america according to their identity and they are not used to being pushed back on against on that front and it works it absolutely i it absolutely works so i really those are the two things that i encourage people to do when they are trying to have these these conversations and don't just slap the label on american on explain that there's this fundamental conflict between christian nationalism and the founding principles of america and that's what i try to do in on every page of the founding myth which you can get a signed copy of from ffrf thank you tom and that was andrew seidel who is a constitutional attorney who is the director of strategic response for the freedom from religion foundation hosting our very first coffee and conversation it's a zoom event for members only if you're a member of the freedom for religion foundation we will send you an invitation to the private member's zoom event we're going to do another one in a month with two other attorneys of the freedom firm religion foundation so watch your email or watch our announcement for that we have a lot of different media we have a radio show called free thought radio which is just finishing its 15th year with me and annie laurie gaylor we have a newspaper free thought today which is now in 36 years i think this is our 37th year of publishing we have a blog called free thought now which is the pathos blog of course we have this show ask an atheist which is most wednesdays at 12 noon central which you are watching and well next week we will talk about a victory in alabama liz cavell and patrick elliott our attorneys will be hosting that show next week on ask an atheist right here on facebook live and we also have a national tv show called free thought matters which broadcasts on about a quarter of the market in major cities around the country uh free thought matters is also put up on youtube so you can watch the show the same week that it goes up so that's our show for today tune in next wednesday 12 news central for another episode of ask an atheist on facebook live [Music] freedom from religion

Channel: FFRF

Views: 5,343

Rating: 4.9148936 out of 5

Keywords: Andrew Seidel, Christian Nationalism, January 6, Insurrection, Capitol Attack, January 6 Insurrection, Freedom From Religion Foundation, FFRF, Atheism, Atheist

Id: btGuZgg0lO0

Length: 58min 46sec (3526 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 07 2021