Thread by @GorskiPhilip

1/ Further thoughts on @DavidAFrench's important essay on #ChristianNationalism.

It's great to see a leading evangelical thinker publicly engaging the topic.

But....

2/ It would be even better if @DavidAFrench would engage with work on #ChristianNationalism by scholars and journalists like:

@ndrewwhitehead @socofthesacred @praxishabitus @sarahposner @kathsstewart @AntheaButler @nicholef and yours truly @GorskiPhilip

Also...

3/ With the work of black theologians such as:

Willie Jennings, @JemarTisby @stewartdantec @esaumccaulley to name just a few.

If he did, then....

4/ He'd know that there are much better and more nuanced definitions of #ChristianNationalism than the one offered by @ThomasSKidd, who is a smart guy, but not a scholar of the subject.

Plus...

5/ He'd know that the phenomenon is, in fact, much more widespread than he implies, not just amongst white evangelicals but also amongst non-evangelical white Protestants and white Catholics....See "Taking America Back for God" for the receipts.

So, why do I keep saying "white"?

6/ Because, as all this work shows, #ChristianNationalism in the US must be understood as *White* #ChristianNationalism. White Supremacism has left a deep and enduring impression on American Christianity that exerts effects even in the absence of racial prejudice.

How so?

7/ An example: Christian libertarianism.

As many scholars have shown, including @praxishabitus and I, conservative evangelicals were NOT economic conservatives 100 years ago. They were economic progressives!

What happened?

8/ Basically, the New Deal and the Civil Rights Movement.

How could you push back against social and economic policies that might've helped Black folks? And without screaming the "n-word"? Replace it with the "m-word": MARKETS!

This was a completely conscious strategy, too.

9/ To be clear: I am NOT suggesting that @DavidAFrench is some kind of racist. I know the very opposite to be the case. Unlike many of his co-religionists, he recognizes that systemic racism is not some fiction cooked up in the seminar room. It's real.