Summit encourages faith leaders to challenge white Christian nationalism
Huddled in an elevator at the Southern Poverty Law Center headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama, stood a group of people who had attended an interfaith summit that day on countering hate and election-related violence ahead of November’s presidential contest.
The group had assembled to learn about the Christian white nationalist movement and its influence on the country’s elections – and, most importantly, to hear strategies on how to counter the movement’s influence on their congregations.
The three-day summit, held Sept. 24-26 and hosted in partnership with the SPLC’s Intelligence Project (IP) the Interfaith Alliance and the SPLC’s Alabama state office, brought together a group of about 50 faith leaders from churches, synagogues and mosques, as well as faith-related organizations. The day’s program had closed with participants sharing how hope and love kept them grounded in the ever-changing battle against hate and division.
As the elevator descended to the lobby, one participant, a white-haired woman of small stature, sighed in relief. “After hearing so much about hate today, it felt so good to hear about love in the end,” she said, as the others nodded in agreement.
Her sentiment highlights the values that make progressive faith leaders such important agents of change in the fight against religious extremism and hate-based violence in communities across the U.S.
“The faith community is purposely being manipulated and divided by a group of people that don’t have the best interest of all of our communities in mind,” said Rachel Carroll Rivas, interim director of the Intelligence Project. “We need to uplift the abundant interfaith voices that are supportive of civil and human rights but are getting drowned out.”
Interfaith Alliance organizing and election strategist Adam Friedman echoed the sentiment.
“We know that Americans from all different walks of life trust their faith leaders, regardless of political belief or affiliation,” Friedman said. “Faith leaders have a unique ability to speak to the values that people hold and invite them to reflect on their shared beliefs and lived experiences as community members, despite their differences.”
White Christian supremacist values
The Intelligence Project’s 2023 Year in Hate report identified 1,430 hate and far-right antigovernment groups working to radicalize Americans and push white supremacist ideology and misinformation. Over the years that the Intelligence Project has tracked white Christian nationalist and antigovernment movements, its researchers have documented how their influence can be used to work against the common good.
One of the greatest current threats to U.S. democracy is the movement to infuse authoritarian-style, white supremacist Christian ideology into U.S. culture and politics through the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement.
The NAR follows the principle of “dominionism,” the “theocratic belief that Christians are mandated by God to exercise dominion over all parts of society by controlling its cultural and political institutions,” according to Fred Clarkson, of Political Research Associates.
It encourages the use of “spiritual warfare” and paints other religions, political opponents and historically marginalized people, such as immigrants and those who identify as LGBTQ+, as demonically influenced. Their reach has extended to the nation’s capital, where the movement’s doctrine has been echoed by former Trump administration officials. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has been identified as closely aligned with NAR leaders.
About 30% of Americans hold some beliefs consistent with the Christian nationalist political ideology, according to a 2023 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in partnership with the Brookings Institution. In another PRRI/Brookings survey that same year, 83% of Christian nationalist adherents and 67% of sympathizers agreed with the statement “God intended America to be a new promised land where European Christians could create a society that could be an example to the rest of the world.” Forty percent of adherents and 22% of sympathizers agreed with the statement “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
How progressive faith leaders can fight hate
Interfaith Summit participants learned about the role that antisemitism and racism have played in Christian nationalist movements, as well as the history of political organizing within Black churches and interfaith communities. Participants learned strategies to identify communities that might be targeted by far-right groups as well as ways to mobilize their communities to push back.
Some of those tactics included deepening relationships with communities that are being targeted as well as those adjacent to the people and groups that perpetuate hate; identifying locations that might face heightened risk and showing up to de-escalate, for example, by serving as a poll chaplain on Election Day; challenging disinformation and encouraging congregants to trust the democratic process; and offering space for diverse, interfaith groups to come together to discuss and act on issues affecting their communities.
“It’s critically important that people see the threads of the ways in which white supremacy and discrimination are used to target many groups,” said Sabrina E. Dent, Ph.D., a summit participant and panelist who leads the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty’s Center for Faith, Justice and Reconciliation. “When theological language is used to paint people as demonic, it takes away the human responsibility and moral obligation to address the issues that we see in our society – issues that are not to be left up to a supernatural power to address, but those of us that see it happening and those of us that are impacted. I appreciate that in each of the workshops, that’s what has come forward.”
The Rev. C.J. Brinson, a minister and organizer in Greensboro, North Carolina, shared how faith leaders in his state were working to counter the right’s co-optation of evangelist tent revivals. These revivals emerged in the 18th century as a way to spread the word across large swaths of mostly rural communities that lacked dedicated churches.
Through “Revival Reimagined,” a program sponsored by Downhome North Carolina, Brinson described how he and local faith leaders traveled to churches throughout the state carrying sermons that spoke of uniting people to build multiracial coalitions to fight poverty, protect reproductive justice and affirm the rights of LGBTQ+ people.
Their message encouraged believers to embrace love rather than hate, protection over persecution and opinions driven by facts rather than disinformation.
“We have an opportunity to bring these folks in and to gather them around progressive faith values,” Brinson said. “Values that they can not only hold for themselves, but that they can carry with them into the ballot box.”
Picture at top: “Faith leaders have a unique ability to speak to the values that people hold and invite them to reflect on their shared beliefs,” said Adam Friedman, Interfaith Alliance organizing and election strategist. (Courtesy of Adam Friedman)
