Editor's note: This essay was adapted from remarks delivered by the author for the Episcopal Diocese of New York's 2024 Hobart Lecture on Sept. 12 at St. Thomas Church in Manhattan.

In the years following the 2016 election, it became apparent in the small mountain community where I live that the word “democracy” was becoming a dirty word to some people. Strange sounds like “freedom, not democracy!” and “democracy never!” began to be heard around us. Some among us were beginning to slide toward an acceptance of the idea of one-party rule — provided that one party could be largely white and Christian and nationalist.

In June this year, the Theology Committee of the Episcopal House of Bishops called Christian nationalism “the gravest and most dangerous sin of today.”

Why, if the bishops are correct, have they and other Christians been so hesitant to address this grave and dangerous sin from the pulpits and in other public arenas?

One reason is that we have nearly all confused white Christian nationalism with traditional conservative Christian faith — whether Catholic or Protestant — and we don’t want to risk offending our more conservative siblings.

Another is that too many of us have bought the lie that politics and spirituality should be kept separate. In truth, politics and spirituality, when — and only when — they are both generating justice, combine to move among us as the public energy of the sacred spirit.

Let’s be clear: White Christian nationalism is not Christian. It has nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth. It is a dangerous, violent, political weapon that has cunningly co-opted Christian language, and it is wielded by a movement of rich, predominantly white men to secure control of the United States government in all its branches, nationally and locally. Christian nationalism perverts the spirit of Jesus and his power to make justice-love; it assaults democracy and undermines the aspiration of our nation’s founders that our government should be of, by and for the people.

The challenge for Christians today is to use our power, our voices, our talents and our courage to empower our communities to speak out about white Christian nationalism, to vote against it and to work together against it well into the future. White Christian nationalism will not disappear after the November election, whoever wins: Its roots are too deep and strong for it to be easily or quickly........

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