Welcome to politically speaking.

I'm Elizabeth Bennion, chancellor's professor of political science and director of community engagement at Indiana University, South Bend.

Today, we're joined by journalist and author Katherine Stewart, whose work sheds light on the intersection of religion and politics in America.

We'll be discussing the ways religious movements have influenced public policy and the American political landscape, and exploring the debates surrounding their role in shaping our democracy.

Thank you so much for being here.

Great to be here.

Thank you so much for having me.

Now, I want to start by asking you a question about your forthcoming book, Money Lies in God Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy.

You make some strong claims about the role that Christian nationalism plays in American politics.

And I wonder if you can start by explaining what you mean by Christian nationalism, and what led you to explore this topic in so much depth.

Well, those are two fantastic questions, and I will start with the second question.

I started to sort of explore this topic back in 2009.

I was living in Santa Barbara, California, and my daughter was like a kindergartner, first grader, six years old, and I learned that something called A Good News Club was coming to our public elementary school.

Now, good news clubs are after school clubs that installed themselves in public schools, public elementary schools.

They use materials that are intended to convert children who are too young to read.

They teach them the message that without Jesus, they're going to go to hell.

And they specifically instructed the children attending the clubs to recruit their non-Christian peers or their peers who were sort of insufficiently Christian, the wrong kinds of Christian.

The sort of, Good News Club is sponsored by an organization called the Child Evangelism Fellowship, which is endorses, you know, evangelical Christianity is a spectrum, right?

But they enjoy a very endorse a very reactionary, form of evangelicalism, and, and, and and they're they're operating in public schools, not public schools have a cloak of authority in the minds of young children, particularly.

They think of it's taught in their school.

It must be sponsored by their school.

They they say things like, you know, they don't teach things in public schools that aren't true.

So I started to hear stories.

No, at first, by the way, when I heard about the Goodness Club, I thought, you know, they're teaching Bible stories, and they say it's from a non-denominational standpoint.

And I was a bit naive.

I thought nondenominational meant nonsectarian.

I support, the idea of teaching about religion in public schools from a truly non-denominational standpoint, because religion is, you know, it's like really fundamental to to human society, to teaching world religions, for example, or, you know, yes, exactly.

But I started to hear stories from families in town where whose kids attended these schools.

These elementary schools were good news.

Clubs had been established.

And I started to hear about how kids attending the clubs were targeting their faith, their peers, their non-Christian peers for what I could or their sort of Catholic peers, for instance, for I could really only describe as faith based bullying.

They would say, you know, you're going to go to Jesus.

You're going to go to hell because you don't believe in Jesus or you you don't go to the right kind of church.

And I know it must be true because they taught it to me in school.

So so they were saying they were teaching it in school, but it was part of an after school club.

Yes, but often taking place right after the bell rings in the same classroom.

And, so children cannot distinguish between an activity taught in their school and one sponsored by their school.

They just can't make that distinction.

So you started to get interested in the dividing line?

Yeah.

Establishment clause, what it means to have a separation of church and state.

Exactly.

I just thought, why do these people why does this club need to be established in the public school?

You know, what do they really believe?

In our community, many of the Christian parents, who are themselves evangelical, offered the Good news club space in the the church next door to the school.

I mean, it's a gorgeous church.

And the Goodness Club leaders declined.

I thought, why do they need to be in the public school?

Public elementary school?

Why?

Why don't they want to be in the church after school?

You know, it's just a a short, you know, hop, skip and a jump away.

So that sort of started me on my journey.

And when I started to focus on the courts, the legal decision that had allowed these clubs to be placed in public schools previously, they'd been excluded because of Establishment Clause concerns, which, as you know, is the the best piece of real estate in our Constitution.

It's the first clause of our First Amendment.

And it's been interpreted to ensure the separation of church and state.

That's when I really started exploring what this really meant, and it really led me to understand more about Christian nationalism.

And I'd like to talk to you, you know, addressed your first question, which is what is Christian nationalism?

So I think of it as a mindset and a machine.

Okay.

So the mindset is basically the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation.

Our laws should be based on, a certain interpretation of the Bible.

As you know, American Christianity is incredibly diverse.

But it's this idea that, you know, once we were great and we've lost it because America is insufficiently, Christian in a certain way.

And we need to get back to that.

But the mind, you know, the the mindset also includes this idea that, you know, we're facing the apocalypse.

You know, America's going to hell in a handbasket, and, conservative Christians are the most persecuted group in society.

And we need a strongman who's willing to break the rules and exact retribution on our enemies.

Because only a strongman can save us from this apocalypse that we're facing.

I think a lot of people within the movement really interpret modern politics, modern, contemporary politics, as being played out in the spiritual realm.

It's sort of, you know, the forces of good against the forces of Satan.

And in many instances, they see the hand of God on the side of Donald Trump and call anyone who is not on board with that agenda, including moderate Republicans, you know, under the thumb of Satan or demonic.

So that's the mindset.

And, you know, looking at the legal strategy that had sort of was tearing down the wall of separation between church and state, I started to recognize that this is also a political movement.

It what I mean when I say machine, it's a leadership driven and organization driven.

The movement has invested huge sums of money over the past decades in a number of different organizations that we can group into different categories.

So there's a vast legal sphere.

There are policy groups, there are legal advocacy groups, there are networking organizations.

And there's a vast far right messaging machine.

I think an underappreciated aspect about the machinery of the Christian nationalist movement are these pastor networks.

In many instances, leaders of the movement have drawn pastors into these networks, like Watchmen on the wall or Faith wins.

And, you know, there are a number of others.

They they draw in pastors, many of whom are conservative leaning, especially on culture war issues.

But they tell them you need to get involved in politics and you need to turn out your congregations to vote.

So they give them very sophisticated data tools to do that.

Messaging tools, voter guides and things like that.

So they're using the tools of democracy.

But at its core, this is a movement that really does not believe in in democracy as, as we as we've known it.

So let me follow up there, because the First Amendment also includes, of course, the free exercise Clause, which allows people to practice their religion.

People have the right to believe anything they want, including the fact that without a belief in Jesus, you will go to hell, include and you will see more progressive churches also try to turn their voters out to vote.

For example, central to organizing, African-Americans is often the black church in this country.

So how is this different?

In what way do you see this as a threat to democracy?

Well, all these other things are sort of part and parcel of everyday US politics, the left and right.

I think the reason we have such a, a varied and and diverse, mosaic of religions in our country is precisely because of both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause.

We have the right to worship any God or sacred idea or none.

And we see the diversity, this these principles reflected in the diversity of our own religious landscape.

The, you know, yes, there is some political politicization of, of religion on the right, but it's not there on the, on the left.

I would say, you know, there is some efforts to sort of falls to the polls, for instance, and things like that.

But these are not equivalent movements.

There's much more money, being invested in the right wing.

I would say, machine, the sort of Christian nationalist machine, in part because it's funded by in large part by billionaires.

If you look at, the sums of money, they're frankly extraordinary in my books.

I've published three books right now on the topic.

And, in my books, I really focus on a lot of the funders and what they want.

A lot of them, you know, they they're funding these organizations that are promoting culture war issues.

They say we're not, you know, don't vote.

You know, we're not going to tell you which party to vote for, but you're going to vote for biblical values, but then it reduces to like 2 or 3 issues, like abortion or same sex marriage and things like that.

But with the oligarchs who are funding the movement, really want is a kind of far right libertarian economic agenda.

And they know that if you can get people to vote on 1 or 2 issues, you can control their vote and their driving support for politicians whose policies are actually supporting a kind of billionaire friend friendly economic agenda.

So, you know, this movement that claims to stand for family values, but they're driving support for policies that are making it so much harder for American families to succeed.

You know, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with churches telling their congregants, you know, these are the values that should help guide you when you're at the ballot box.

But the extent to which this is happening in, I would say, in these, within these conservative church networks is is kind of astonishing.

I mean, the way that I do a lot of my research is I attend these, you know, Christian nationalist conferences and strategy gatherings.

I do interview people when I can, you know, spend a lot of time among the rank and file.

I was recently at a conference called, Private Stand.

It's an annual conference that one of the main and most important, policy groups, the Family Research Council, runs every year in Washington, D.C.. And there was a speaker from First Liberty Institute.

It's one of the legal advocacy groups, Matt Kraus.

And he was talking about all the activity that's happening in churches to turn out the vote for, the Republican ticket.

And there was a woman in the audience who raised her hand.

She said, I'm confused.

We have the Johnson Amendment.

So which is, as you know, the, it was passed in the 1950s.

It's supposed to keep churches from engaging directly in Partizan politics, and that's part of the justification for their tax exemptions and their lack of financial transparency laws that they have to adhere to on the same basis as other nonprofits.

And she said, so, was the Johnson Amendment bean, bean, been been repealed?

Or I thought it was still in place.

And he sort of laughed and he said, well, you know, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, did it, you know, does it make a sound?

And the entire audience laughed.

I mean, it's basically saying it's been repealed on the ground in a way.

And and explicitly repealing it has been one of the big goals of movement leaders.

And you do see the, movement as being linked very tightly to GOP politics.

How does that influence elections and public policy?

And are there upper level, political leaders who are directly involved with leaders of the movement or involved in the movement themselves?

Absolutely.

I mean, just, you know, let's just think about when Donald Trump won the election in 2016.

To be truthful, he wasn't the favorite of many of the movement leaders.

I think in the beginning, a lot of them felt a lot more sense of comfort with Ted Cruz and other more sort of, I would say reliable messengers of, of the movement or, you know, people who'd sort of come up within the movement and, and but once it was clear that he was the front runner, they coalesced behind him and they turned out their voter turnout machine on his behalf.

I remember I was at Ralph Reed and he's Ralph Reed is another movement leader.

He's one of the movement's most seasoned and astute strategists, and he runs the Faith and Freedom Coalition.

They have a lot of different partnerships, and they turn out the vote in all of these very specific ways.

And he spoke very explicitly about the money and, and the strategy that they were going to use to turn out the vote on his behalf.

And so Trump would say at many of his gatherings or whenever he's speaking at the March for life, he did that by video one year.

He spoke at a number of other gatherings.

He appeared at Faith and Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority conference.

He'd say, I think I gave you everything you want, and I think I gave you more.

He didn't say, we got what we want.

It was very transactional.

It's like I gave you pro-life justices because he sort of would run down a list.

These he actually at one point he he showed he displayed a list of justices.

He was thinking of appointing for the Supreme Court.

And he said, these judges are all pro-life.

And he was like, this is what I can give you.

He, had his evangelical advisory council, very unique.

There were very, you know, people had unprecedented political access.

He, and his administration promoted policies that favor certain particular religious viewpoints and disfavor others, including many a disparaging of many Christian viewpoints.

And this goes back to what you said earlier about the fact that many there are progressive leaders who oppose the the, I would say, the values of conquest and division at this movement represents.

I have spoken at many churches I've worked with many of them, they, really are saying this does not wrap represent my faith.

This is a perversion of my understanding of the gospel.

It's a diminishment of the social gospel.

And they're frankly very upset about that.

But they also, you know, are very conscious of the rules and in general, and they're also not funded on the same basis as the funding that exists on the right.

So let me follow up with a couple more questions then, first of all, the religious right, of course, has been part of the political landscape for a long time, but it's more recently that we've heard talk about Christian nationalism.

So what makes this a nationalist movement?

And then, you know, are is is the problem that progressives in particular have with the movement something that it's so successful?

What do you say to, people who say this is just sour grapes?

It's not a threat to democracy.

So where is the threat to democracy?

Isn't this just part of democracy?

These are great questions.

I mean, I call it Christian nationalism is a form of reactionary nationalism, right?

It's who gets to properly belong in the country, who is a true American and who is not.

And in this, my second book, my previous book on the topic, the power worshipers inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, I call it religious nationalism to, explicitly draw comparisons with other forms of religious nationalism around the world.

So if you look at leaders like, Putin in Russia or Erdogan in Turkey, or leaders in Iran or Viktor Orban in Hungary, when these leaders bind themselves very tightly to ultraconservative religious figures in their own countries in order to consolidate a more authoritarian form of political power, we rightly recognize this as forms of religious nationalism, and many of these countries are theocratic in a certain sense.

They have an official religion.

In some instances, like in Iran or, there there are laws are based on, their interpretations of their holy texts.

Right.

But I think you might even more accurately describe these countries, as I would say, crony istic kleptocracy with no, tolerance for political opposition, absolute suppression of of free speech and a real restriction on, on human rights.

And, frankly, I think you can draw, you know, I think Christian nationalism in America, you know, it poses some of those same threats, this idea that, you know, if you're not on board with the agenda of the movement, you are, cast as an enemy within.

This is something that Trump actually often says in his rallies or in his speeches.

He said, I was at, several of his rallies and both times he said, the greatest threat to our country is not our foreign enemies.

As dangerous as they may be, the greatest threat to our country is the enemy within.

And he's speaking about anyone who's not on board with his agenda.

You know, I I've also attended several stops on.

Do you know what the ReAwaken America tour is doing?

Okay.

The ReAwaken America, is it traveling pro-Trump?

Road show?

It takes place in, locations, usually in megachurches around the country.

It's run by Mike Flynn, who is a great Trump ally and a fellow, you know, fellow traveler named Clay Clark.

Usually one of the Trump sons shows up to speak.

It's got very strong religious overtones.

They often have, a lot of pastors who are sort of like, you know, Trump pastors for Trump, Jason Lyman and other sort of it's a very political pastors speaking.

And often they have a separate conference for them to or separate sessions for them.

Where was I going with this?

So they when you go to these places, you hear all kinds of crazy conspiracies.

But you hear anyone to who is not on board with their agenda cast is literally demonic.

You see people with t shirts that say, I'm going rhino hunting rhino standing for Republican in name only.

This is a way of enforcing a kind of purity within the Republican Party.

You know, it's very sad because I feel like in an earlier time, the Republican Party really stood for the principles of conservatism, preserving institutions of value that have served us over time.

But this is a movement that, frankly, wants to tear down America's institutions.

They want to tear down the legitimacy of the judiciary.

They want to tear down public education.

They're very explicit about that.

They, have rallied most of them behind a convicted criminal who attempted to overturn an election and inspired a violent attack on our Capitol on January 6th.

I mean, it's really kind of astonishing.

And, you know, when you say, you know, this is just sour grapes on the part of Democrats.

Absolutely not.

You know, a lot of, Republicans care about our democracy as well.

And many of them feel like they no longer have party.

So I think that we're we're really facing, a crisis of sorts in our democracy Now!

It's it's not like we haven't faced crises in the past.

American history has faced illiberal movements in the past.

And, we've seen a lot of progress over time in various issues.

I mean, I think 150 years ago, more we had, slavery, was legal.

You know, women couldn't, have their own our own bank accounts or pursue higher education.

I mean, we've just come so far, and yet there are folks within this movement that say they want to take us back to the like, I don't know, whatever, 18, 12 or something like that, or 1820.

I can't recall the exact date.

And you just think, what is it that they really want to bring back here?

So what makes it nationalist or a threat to democracy then?

It sounds like is a desire to shape politics in their own image, or to put in place laws that would require others to live by their own religious beliefs.

Well, allowing less freedom for other people to make different choices.

I think the the there are myriad threats.

The, the the big threat is the threat to democracy itself.

A threat to the rule of law, the threat to being able to uphold our institutions, that have served us over time, you know?

Yeah.

Losers can send, for example, the right to vote, the right to, political opposition, the right to free speech, basic human rights, the right to human equality, the right to, the separation of church and state, which is not to suppress religion, but actually to encourage diversity and flourishing, to encourage us all to be able to worship and believe as we choose, but to not have other people, representatives of the government realm, their idea of what religion should be down our throats and force it into our kids schools and force it into our government.

I mean, separation of church and state really ensures a kind of neutral playing field so that people are free to believe as they choose and free to worship as they choose.

Now, if people want to learn more about Christian nationalism, what would you recommend and what is it that you hope people will do in their own communities in talking with their neighbors, whether in church or at neighborhood associations?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I'm going to promote my forthcoming book, Money Lies in God Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy.

I also, my last book, The Power Worshipers, formed the basis of a documentary feature film titled God and Country.

It was produced by Rob Reiner, and it includes voices, across the political spectrum.

Speaking about what Christian nationalism is and what it's not and, sort of, exploring some of the threats that Christian nationalism, poses to our, you know, Democratic republic, beautiful and diverse democratic republic and, and there's so many other writers in this field, in each of my books, I make sure to name and draw on, and quote other writers and thinkers in this field because I really it's there are there are a lot of folks now sort of studying this phenomena.

And I think it's really important that we acknowledge and lift up one another.

Thank you so much for being here.

Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for this week's Politically Speaking.

I want to thank Catherine Stewart for sharing her thoughts and expertise on this topic.

I'm Elizabeth Feeney and reminding you that it takes all of us to make democracy work.

We'll see you next time.

This WNIT Local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.