Christian nationalism is one of the most recent morphing of Christianity. Christians have been arguing for two millennia about what Christianity believes. St. Paul and St. Peter started the litany of schisms. Initially, Peter thought that Christianity was a part of Judaism, but Paul, who was also Jewish, wanted Christianity to reach out to the Gentiles, who were non-Jewish. Paul’s theological mindset won out, and the church broke with Judaism.

Since Peter and Paul's disagreement, there have been two major schisms. In 1054, the Roman Catholic Church split with Eastern Orthodoxy. A half millennia later, in 1517, the Protestant Reformation split from Catholicism, creating two branches in the Western church. Since that schism, the Protestants have continued subdividing ad infinitum. There are over 35,000 Protestant denominations today, which is still growing. Most branches of Christianity broke off from the larger group due to theological disagreements or how the church functions and governs.

Schisms over two millennia

I know my history of the various branches of Christianity was a bit boring as we reflect upon it in the 21^st century. However, Christian nationalism isn’t. It is a creation with a Christian background, which has been edited or merely invented doctrines and beliefs devoid of a biblical basis. They want their form of Christianity to be followed by heterosexual whites who were born in America and whose primary language is English.

Christian nationalism is multifaceted and extremely divergent. Not all Christian nationalists adhere to all the various groups under the Christian nationalist umbrella. An example of this is the new law in Louisiana mandating that the Ten Commandments be posted in all school classrooms in the state, including elementary, junior high, high school, and college.

My guess is that if all Christian nationalists were polled, most would agree with the Louisiana law. Nonetheless, the ACLU has gone to court in opposition to that law. In all my years in college, graduate school, and post-graduate school, I never took any law class. However, Louisiana's law is unconstitutional due to the separation of church and state. The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause state, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”

Also, the Ten Commandments aren’t theological tenets of Christianity. They are Jewish beliefs. If Christian nationalists wish to follow a commandment, they can quote Jesus, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

Nonetheless, that commandment runs diametrically opposite to Christian nationalists. They aren’t into loving one another unless the others are white, born in America, and speak English.

Louisianna believes that “the education of our children is part of our state and national history, culture, and tradition.” The question is whether slavery, Jim Crow laws, and segregation are a part of our history, culture, and tradition that wants to be enshrined. As I read about educating our children about our history, I immediately remembered Warner Sallman’s painting Head of Christ in 1940.

I was an art history teaching assistant at Muskingum College in my senior year. Later in life, I often taught art history classes at various colleges. I love all forms of art. This is one of my PowerPoint presentations on art history. Sallman was considered by many non-art-aficionados a great painter. Well, no one in the art world thinks that. Some of them refer to the Head of Christ as the pretty Jesus.

Beyond his artistic ability, what does his portrait say about the artist’s mindset? Jesus was born in the Middle East. I’ve traveled in the area several times during my travels. I haven’t seen any light brown-haired and blue-eyed Middle Easterners.

Pretty Jesus

Jesus didn’t look like a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) with blue eyes. Sallman’s painting doesn’t reflect Jesus, but it does reflect what WASPs admire...someone slightly better than them.

Brad Onishi was a Christian nationalist until he thought better than that mindset. When reading about Onishi sometime ago, I couldn’t grasp how a person with a mix of Asian and white ethnicity could be a Christian nationalist. It seemed beyond the pale. Perhaps racism made him reconsider Christian nationalism. I just discovered that he co-hosts a podcast, Straight White America Jesus, which addresses the disconnect between Christian nationalist’s theological and the other Christian denominations.

Brad Onishi’s book

Growing up in the 40s, I lived in a white world in Merchantville and Pennsauken, NJ. It wasn’t taught to me; I just observed it, whether in elementary school or shopping at the grocery store with my mother. In my early life, I soon heard that the communists were out to get us. That resulted in the Army-McCarthy hearing, followed several months later, the phrase “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance.

White America became aware of the modern civil rights movement in the 60s. Blacks began the civil rights movement in 1955. Rosa Parks didn’t give some white guy her seat on a bus in Montgomery, AL.

Other issues like the Moral Minority and the Great Replacement Theory soon became the rallying points for the Christian nationalists. They believed that Christians were inherently better than others who weren’t white. God picked white Christians to work for him. It is an American version of the royal we.

White Christians liked the notion that God gave them a special place in the pecking order of races to do his divine work. In the 19th century, this was called Manifest Destiny. God wanted whites to move westward to the Pacific Ocean by conquering the wilderness.

Manifest Destiny

They also directly or indirectly killed 90% of the Native Americans through wars, forced relocating them, and introducing them to European diseases. Native Americans lacked immunity from European diseases. White European Christians did precisely the same thing in Africa and other places in the world.

Christian nationalism has a great appeal to some in America. It is important in many places, including Dallas, TX., at the First Baptist Church, which morphs together Easter and the 4^th of July.

White nationalism and white supremacists want to make America white again. They will do whatever is necessary to restore God’s kingdom in America. In the January 6^th insurrection, many of the rioters were white nationalists. Look at the photo below. You will see several white flags with a green tree and the words “An appeal to Heaven.”

“God and Trump sent us to stop the steal.”

America needs to rethink its beliefs, both religiously and politically. It is another Kierkegaardian either/or situation facing America.

This is a video of an interview with Bradley Onishi.