SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Christian nationalism is a movement that has gained momentum in conservative circles in recent years. The basic idea is a blend of government and religion, specifically Christianity, that is way more explicit and intense than it has typically been the case throughout American history. A new public radio podcast takes a look inside the Christian nationalist movement. It's called Extremely American: Onward Christian Soldiers. Here's host Heath Druzin and reporter James Dawson from Boise State Public Radio.
HEATH DRUZIN, BYLINE: Hey, Gabe. How are you doing?
GABRIEL RENCH: Welcome. This is our...
DRUZIN: I'm talking to Gabriel Rench, a media personality and activist in Idaho. Most people call him Gabe.
OK. Great.
Gabe has a lot of ideas about how America should change.
You said it would probably take a long time, but that you would like to see only Christians be able to run for office. So if you're Jewish, if you're Muslim, if you're atheist, certainly, if I had you right, you said that, yes, you would support eventually that - them not being allowed to run for office.
RENCH: That's correct. I did say that.
DRUZIN: Because Gabe is a proud Christian nationalist.
RENCH: I think that the Christian faith is the ideal moral doctrine and principles for a thriving society, and the farther you get away from that, the more in chaos we descend. And so I - the only way to maintain that, or one of the ways to maintain that, is you have to have people who are running for office who believe that or you're going to get back into that chaotic decline.
DRUZIN: So I'll tell you straight up. As a Jewish American, I hear that, that I can't run for office, other non-Christians can't. And I have to admit, it's a little terrifying to me because, to me, that means a fundamental freedom of mine in this theoretical world is gone.
RENCH: Well, I mean, you're saying that in a country where you experience all these immense freedoms that was built on the Christian faith. So...
DRUZIN: But where I can run for office right now.
RENCH: Yeah because your worldview is not good for society.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
DRUZIN: So Gabe wants biblical law to apply to everyone. That means a lot less democracy, especially for non-Christians like me. I should probably pause a moment here to acknowledge the bizarre journey I've been on for the past year. I've mentioned before that I'm Jewish, and it has been surreal to be immersed in this world of Christian nationalism.
Don't get me wrong. People like Gabe have been unfailingly polite, which frankly makes it weirder. I'm being politely told I don't deserve key rights. But the reason I'm here, listening to Gabe explain why I should lose my rights, is not to feel uncomfortable. It's because plenty of people agree with him. Gabe is part of a younger vanguard of Christian nationalists trying to make their vision a reality. And they're spreading their word through popular streaming shows, including Gabe's creation, "CrossPolitic."
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "CROSSPOLITIC")
RENCH: Merry Christmas. Welcome to "CrossPolitic." You could not wait for the weekend to end and "CrossPolitic" to begin.
DRUZIN: "CrossPolitic" is a mash-up of fundamentalist religion, politics and drinking.
RENCH: So it's kind of a faster-paced show and, you know, a little rough around the edges. So I think that's attractive to a younger generation. Our music, you know, is a little more hard hitting.
DRUZIN: These aren't the megachurch pastors of yore with their faith healing and fire and brimstone. Those guys focused on arena-sized church crowds. Gabe and his allies use popular streaming shows and savvy social media. They have followers around the country. They write books extolling the patriarchy and want their followers to get political and get more Christ into government.
RENCH: They love to get into my tribe, your tribe, tribalism and all sorts of nonsense.
DRUZIN: Gabe and his Christian nationalist peers are a whiskey drinking, cigar smoking set that favor expensive boots and well-quaffed hair.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: What are we drinking?
RENCH: This is a Glenfiddich 14-year.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Good. I don't have to give it back.
RENCH: This is from a listener.
DRUZIN: Kind of hipster theocrats with a distinctly bro motif. And business is good. These guys have popular books, a large podcast and a YouTube channel with about 20,000 subscribers.
RENCH: All right, y'all. Come on back. Come on in. Sit down. Squanch in.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Squanch - that's not a word.
RENCH: Squanch is a word from Texas.
DRUZIN: And each year, leading Christian nationalist thinkers, as well as rank-and-file believers, gather at a conference.
RENCH: As soon as I walked on campus, someone handed me a glass of whiskey. And I was like, all right. I'm at the Fight Laugh Feast Conference now. It's official. It's official.
DRUZIN: This is Gabe's creation. Fight Laugh Feast is four days of fundamentalist Christians talking to Christians about being Christian.
RENCH: One of the gifts that God has given us is to be able to kind of be a place where we could bring like-minded Christians together.
DRUZIN: So Jimmy and I went. We flew across the country to where Gabe and his compatriots were brainstorming a Christian takeover of America. We're in the northern Kentucky countryside.
JAMES DAWSON, BYLINE: The landscape is rolling and wooded, with lots of farms and, of course, distilleries. But we're not here just as an excuse to go bourbon tasting. We're here to attend Fight Laugh Feast. The theme is the politics of the six days of creation. This, of course, is the granddaddy of Bible verses, Genesis 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. From there, each day God creates a new facet of the earth. And on the seventh day, he rests. And, yeah, Christian nationalists definitely go with he.
TOBY SUMPTER: Creation in six days, a gigantic floating zoo with giraffes sticking their heads out the windows, burning bushes, talking donkeys, dragons and unicorns, resurrection from the dead. Yeah, we believe all of it. We are not embarrassed by any of it.
DRUZIN: That's Toby Sumpter, a pastor and a Christ Church affiliate and one of Gabe's co-hosts on the show "CrossPolitic." If you're wondering about the dragons, it's Revelations 12:3, and unicorns are actually mentioned throughout the Bible. Fight Laugh Feast is billed as a conference, but it feels more like a festival - or this year, even a political convention, because everyone we talked to here thinks America should be a Christian nation.
DOUG WILSON: I want the authority of the Lord Jesus to be confessed by the House and the Senate, and I want the president to sign it.
DAWSON: If you recognize that voice, it's Pastor Doug Wilson, who's a featured speaker here. Fundamentalist thinkers have come from around the country to be here, nearly 1,500 people, according to co-founder Gabe Rench. And that's despite a per-person ticket well north of $400. These Christian nationalists are here to put their heads together. They're planning how to take over America for Jesus. And they have ambitious goals. This is Pastor Toby Sumpter again in a speech at the conference.
DAWSON: ...And mockery. And may you see your children's children standing in the gates of our cities, confounding our enemies until every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is lord, and this land and all the earth is full of the knowledge of the lord as the waters...
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
DRUZIN: We talked to a lot of people at the conference. They didn't pull any punches about who would be in charge in a Christian America - Christians, of course. When you talk to them, though, they're often polite, funny and lighthearted about some heavy subjects. Gabe has a pithy term for this approach that he emphasizes in his speeches.
RENCH: We have to be joyful, jolly warriors. Joy is contagious. Being thankful is contagious.
DRUZIN: Jolly as they may be, warriors are at war, and in a war, there is always an enemy. What I started to realize was, to them, that enemy was me. Here's Gabe.
RENCH: You know, the Bible says that if your enemy needs a drink, give him something to drink.
DRUZIN: Are we your enemy, though?
RENCH: Well, I'd say you're God's enemy. If you don't believe in Jesus, then you're at odds, you're at war with God.
DRUZIN: Statistically speaking, there's a good chance they think of you as the enemy, too. If you're Muslim, atheist, agnostic, Hindu, Mormon, Catholic, Buddhist, you'd be out. Christian nationalist strategy isn't just ideological, though - it's practical. Remember. America is rapidly becoming less Christian. Demographics are death for Christian nationalists right now, and finding support from people they want to disenfranchise seems unlikely.
ANDREW WHITEHEAD: And so I think opposition to democracy comes when they realize or when it becomes more clear that democracy may not return results that they have historically desired.
DRUZIN: That's Indiana University professor Andrew Whitehead. Andrew studies Christian nationalism and has written two books on the subject. But there's a workaround for not getting support in a democracy. If Christian nationalists get rid of entire voting blocs that might oppose their theocracy - voting blocs like women, non-Christians, anyone in the LGBTQ+ community - that starts to solve the problem. Being in the minority isn't as much of an issue if the majority can't vote.
WHITEHEAD: Because ultimately, Christian nationalism is focused on gaining and maintaining access to self-interested power. And I think that that ultimately draws Christians away from the example and words of Jesus in trying to break down dividing walls of hostility and to actually loving our neighbor.
DRUZIN: And one thing we noticed at Fight Last Feast, Christian nationalists are trying to create a parallel society where as many goods and services as possible are provided by Christians. Leaders of Christian companies hawked their services on stage in between speakers. There's Christian crowdfunding and email, Christian Netflix and a publisher putting out Christian children's books.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: With that, we created an entire universe where our characters are meeting the same ideologies that they're facing nowadays with peer pressure, fake news, cancel culture, gender identity. But we talk about it from a Christian point of view.
DRUZIN: This parallel structure, parallel society is trying to pave the way for a Christian America. And these guys are patient.
DETROW: Heath Druzin is the host and creator of the Extremely American series. James Dawson is a reporter for Boise State Public Radio. You can hear more of the podcast at npr.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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