TAKING AMERICA BACK for GOD: CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM in the UNITED STATES (audiobook) by Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry


Published by Tantor Audio in 2020.
Read by Tom Parks.
Duration: 6 hours, 44 minutes.
Unabridged.

Whitehead and Perry are the first sociologists who set out to do an in-depth study of Christian Nationalism and Christian Nationalists. Whitehead (Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis) and Perry (University of Oklahoma) both hail from states where Christian Nationalism plays a strong role in the political and cultural realms.

First, you need a working definition of Christian Nationalism. Whitehead describes it as:  "a cultural framework that is all about trying to advocate for a fusion between Christianity — as they define it — and American civic life." I also like this description by a completely unrelated person, Rev. Skye Jethani: 
"Christians participating in politics or influencing society with their values is NOT Christian Nationalism. Christians believing they have a God-given right to dominate the government & society by excluding & diminishing the value of their non-Christian neighbors IS Christian Nationalism." Whitehead and Perry piggybacked 6 statements into a periodic national survey on religion that Baylor University has conducted for years. Participants ranked their agreement with the statements and were given a total score. The higher the score, the higher the correlation with Christian Nationalism. Here are the statements: 
  1. The federal government should declare the United States a Christian Nation.
  2. The federal government should advocate Christian values.
  3. The federal government should enforce strict separation of church and state. 
  4. The federal government should allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces.
  5. The success of the United States is part of God’s plan.
  6. The federal government should allow prayer in public schools.
The results tell us that a little over half of the country (51.9%) is Christian Nationalist or sympathetic. 48.1% of the country is very opposed or supportive of opposition to Christian Nationalism. Once again, the country is very deeply split. 

Regional differences are strong here. Unsurprisingly, the South is the stronghold of Christian Nationalism. Also, it is no surprise that the Northeast is the stronghold of its opposition.

One of the more interesting facts to come from their study is that the long perceived truth that White Evangelical Christian is just another way of saying Christian Nationalist is incorrect. Although there is a strong correlation between the two, there are White Evangelical Christians represented in all four group identified in strong numbers. For example, the reverend that I quoted above with his definition of Christian Nationalism is an Evangelical Christian, but he is certainly no Christian Nationalist. 

The book starts and ends with detailed explanations of how the data was compiled. It's not particularly invigorating listening in an audiobook, but it does demonstrate that the authors used tried and true methods to gather solid data. 

The discussion of the results in the middle was particularly riveting to me, though. It turns out that I must be what they identify as a "rejector" of Christian Nationalism based on how I reacted to what I think is Christian Nationalism's perversion of the ideals and basic tenets of both my faith and the ideals of my country. As they went through comments from individuals that they gleaned from the surveys I often felt sick to my stomach and sometimes felt like crying. I would love to provide examples, but as I already noted, I listened to the audiobook and it is hard to take notes while driving or walking the dog.

I rated this audiobook 4 stars out of 5 only because all of the parts of the book actually tell you that this is reliable information makes for a slow listen and is likely to drive away listeners who have not taken a sociology class or studied how good polls are made (hint: most polls you run across on social media are very bad polls.)

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: TAKING AMERICA BACK for GOD: CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM in the UNITED STATES by Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry.
 

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